First-ever Powering the Holidays Program to award approximately $25,000 in funding to foster understanding of culture, sense of belonging within local communities

To extend warm feelings into the colder fall and winter seasons, ComEd and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus today announced the launch of the ComEd Powering the Holidays Program. This first-ever program will provide competitive grants of up to $2,500 each for community holiday lighting events across the northern Illinois areas ComEd serves.

“Powering the Holidays will support public lighting events during the holiday season that celebrate community identity and culture, providing residents with opportunities for interculture exchange and understanding,” said Melissa Washington, senior vice president of governmental and external affairs at ComEd. “ComEd is proud to be working with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus to identify and support holiday lighting programs that provide pathways for people to gain a sense of belonging within their communities.”

Municipalities, townships, counties, and other local governments within ComEd’s service territory are eligible to apply. Not-for-profit organizations and cultural institutions also are eligible if they partner with at least one municipality. ComEd will provide the funding for the grants, and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus will administer the grants to local communities. Grant recipients must use their funds for any holiday events between Nov. 1, 2021, and Feb. 13, 2022. Applications are being accepted until 11:59 p.m. Sept. 10, 2021.

“We are grateful to partner with ComEd to launch this first ever Powering the Holidays Program,” said Kevin Wallace, mayor of Bartlett and Mayors Caucus executive board chairman. “It will be rewarding to see these grants provide communities a sense of unity during the holiday season and help people develop a respect and understanding for different cultures.”

The Powering the Holidays Program builds on ComEd’s and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus’s work on the Powering Safe Communities Program which, for the past five years, has provided nearly $850,000 in grants for 116 local public safety projects throughout northern Illinois. The grants support projects that address unmet public safety needs, advance sustainability, use technology to improve public safety and emergency response and provide safety for the greatest number of people and vulnerable populations. Applications for next year’s Powering Safe Communities grants will be accepted starting March 2022.

Powering the Holidays also is an extension of ComEd’s long-time sponsorship of and support for holiday lighting events at Lincoln Park Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, Morton Arboretum and Chicago Botanic Gardens.

For the Powering the Holidays Program, applications, guidelines and more information are available on the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus website.

ComEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 100 energy company with approximately 10 million electricity and natural gas customers – the largest number of customers in the U.S. ComEd powers the lives of more than 4 million customers across northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state’s population. For more information visit ComEd.com and connect with the company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus is a membership organization of the Chicago region's 275 cities, towns and villages. Founded in 1997 by then Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and leading mayors from nine suburban municipal groups, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus pushes past geographical boundaries and local interests to work on public policy issues. The caucus provides a forum for metropolitan Chicago's chief elected officials to collaborate on common problems and work toward a common goal of improving the quality of life for the millions of people who call the region home. For more information visit http://mayorscaucus.org/.

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