Four linemen from Jackson EMC recently spent just over two weeks in Guatemala in the successful effort to bring electricity to a village for the first time. They joined colleagues from around state, building four miles of electric line to provide electricity to more than 50 homes, two schools and two churches in Guadalupe. Brendan Brewer was one of the volunteers. He spoke with us about his experience.
“I really loved going over there and getting with the locals that lived in the village and getting together.” Brewer said. “And it was a really fun experience, you know, when people are able to have their own lights that they can turn on and off. To be able to plug in devices - and that made living a lot easier for them because they had to farm and get water from rivers and stuff like that. They don’t have running water like we do.”
Crews had to travel an hour and a half from their hotel to climb the 55 poles since no bucket trucks were available.
“The terrain was very challenging, " said Brewer. "One of the days it was almost a 115 degrees heat index, and we ended up doing a lot of hiking. My climbing bag was 67 pounds, and you can imagine carrying that all day from pole to pole to pole.”
Brewer said he enjoyed the work. He added, “I think the biggest part was just being able to make a difference in other people's daily lives. They were very appreciative.”
Jackson EMC is the largest electric cooperative in Georgia.
