BRAINERD — CenterPoint Energy, Minnesota’s largest natural gas utility, awarded a Community Safety Grant of $2,250 to the Brainerd Fire Department to fund the purchase of gas monitoring equipment.
The equipment is used to detect and monitor hazardous atmospheric conditions when responding to leaks, gas line cuts, or reports of the smell of gas, to improve the safety of firefighters and members of the community when the fire department responds to incidents.
John Larson, field operations supervisor at CenterPoint, presented the Community Safety Grant check to Fire Chief Tim Holmes.
In Minnesota this year, CenterPoint awarded more than 50 Community Safety Grants, totaling over $120,000, to support safety-related equipment and projects. CenterPoint Energy serves more than 920,000 residential and business customers in over 260 local Minnesota communities.
“At CenterPoint Energy, safety is our first core value and drives our efforts to provide safe and reliable energy to the customers and communities we are privileged to serve,” said Brad Steber, vice president, Minnesota Gas at CenterPoint Energy, in a news release. “Through our Community Safety Grant Program, we support the work our emergency responders, local officials and many others do to help support the health and safety of our customers across our local Minnesota communities.”
CenterPoint awards grants of up to $2,500 through this program to support local communities in filling funding gaps that may exist in acquiring safety materials. Each community that CenterPoint serves can submit a grant application with information on a safety-related problem, issue or need in the community and how a Community Safety Grant could address those needs.