West Kentucky Allied Services staff and representatives from Atmos Energy process payments and account credits for natural gas bills on July 1.
Ben Overby
PADUCAH — West Kentucky Allied Services partnered with Atmos Energy for a natural gas utility assistance event for Atmos customers who have had disconnections or disconnect notices at WKAS’s Paducah office Wednesday.
Matthew Allen, community services director for WKAS, said the event is just one example of the community actions agency’s collaboration with Atmos Energy.
“It’s been a long-standing relationship that West Kentucky Allied has had with Atmos Energy,” Allen said. “Throughout the year, if they have funding available, they will let us know, and sometimes we set up a special blitz like we’re doing today. We also did one yesterday in Graves County, and it’s just to kind of get the word out and have as many people as possible come see if we can help them.”
Allen said there was significant turnout both in Graves and McCracken County for the first-come-first-serve program. He said all Atmos customers had to do to be eligible was bring their bill or account number and their ID for workers to be able to look up their account and make a payment or add a credit on their bill.
Matthew Allen, community services director for WKAS, said utility assistance is one aspect of the organization’s mission to serve the community and help low income or at-risk households.
Ben Overby
“When someone provides their account number and their ID, Atmos has actually sent some folks from their home office to help look up those accounts and apply the credits directly to their bill, so it shows up immediately,” Allen said. “If there’s a disconnect notice, they actually work with their back office to have those people call in and get their service reconnected, so that’s kind of the easy part. After that, we enter it into our system to make sure that we’re tracking where all the funds have gone, and who they’ve been applied to.”
Allen said the event is one of several ways WKAS works throughout the year to provide utility assistance, largely through their Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program program.
“That’s typically four separate programs throughout the year — think of the four seasons,” Allen said. “Sometimes it’s only five or six weeks, and sometimes it’s 12 weeks. Then on top of that we partner with utility companies like Atmos, who will provide us funds from their donations or from their pool of resources to help pay bills for their customers.”
Allen said it’s part of WKAS’s mission to help families and households that need assistance, especially for low income and at-risk community members. He said preventing disruptions in utility service is an important part of that mission, particularly in severe weather like the current extreme heat.
Staff at West Kentucky Allied Services’ Paducah office work the desk as community members line up to receive utilities assistance.
“Especially times like right now, when we see heat temperatures rising the way they are, it would be a risk for some people if they had a disruption in their cooling,” Allen said. “In this case, Atmos also helps throughout the winter, whenever heating bills are high.”
Allen also said the stress of utility costs can put pressure on other expenses for a household — such as groceries — and being able to offer assistance helps take a load off families so that their money can go to other needs. He said events like this show the need for assistance in the community, and he hopes it opens the door to helping those same families even more in the future.
“Our ultimate goal, in the long run, is to work with these households one-on-one throughout the year to help improve their lives,” Allen said. “While we see the need today, we know that there are greater needs that we need to address, and hopefully this is just the start of that relationship and after this we can have a more in-depth conversation about how to make their lives better.”
Allen encouraged anyone in the eight westernmost Kentucky counties WKAS serves — Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall and McCracken — to reach out to him or any other staff to find out how the organization can work to address their needs.