Florida Power & Light Company: Community Partners in Service and Philanthropy
Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) is gearing up to celebrate its 100th anniversary of service to Florida communities. Currently in its 98th year, FPL is known for its history of giving back through philanthropic gifts, grant funding, community fundraisers and team member volunteer time.
The impact FPL team members have in Northwest Florida is evident with more than 3,000 volunteer hours in the Northwest Florida community and representation on more than 50 different organizational boards. Like Baptist Health Care, they believe in helping people throughout life’s journey.
“One of the things that has been consistent for our company is to give back to the community,” said Juliet Roulhac, director of external affairs for Broward County and Southwest Florida for FPL, and director of corporate philanthropy for NextEra Energy. “We are a part of the community, just as our employees and customers are. It’s imperative that we give back. We’ve touched almost every industry – health care, education, economic development, workforce development, Veterans Affairs. We adjust to the needs of the community so that we can determine how we can best respond and support.”
“What I’ve seen from a community perspective is that FPL has stepped up in a big way to support our community in ways we didn’t have before,” said J.T. Young, vice president and general manager of FPL NW Florida and Baptist board member. “We’ve really grown our investment in the community, not just monetarily, but also what our employees are doing in innovative ways; it’s impressive. I’m grateful and blessed to be a part of a team that serves our community.”
Historically, the partnership between Baptist and FPL, and formerly Gulf Power Company, has been strongly aligned in each company’s mission, vision and values. The company has been contributing to the Baptist Health Care Foundation for more than 38 years, supporting various programs and services within Baptist’s health care system.
“It’s always been our objective to support those who support others,” said Young. “What we do every day is provide energy services that support everyone; it’s indiscriminate. Baptist has a reputation in the community of being very inclusive with the services it provides in a lot of different ways."
Roulhac agreed, noting that, “One of the things that really stood out to me is that Baptist is a community hospital at its very best. Its whole organizational model is community minded.”
Now, FPL has made its largest gift given in the Northwest Florida region to the Foundation in support of the new Baptist Hospital campus. In honor of this generous $500,000 gift, funded through the NextEra Energy Foundation, the Baptist Hospital cafeteria will be named the FPL Energy Café.
“This gift is truly transformational, and when we were considering our level of giving, we did our research,” said Roulhac. “We looked back historically at how long Baptist has been present and caring about the health of our community – it’s been significant. We looked back at how long we’ve been supporting Baptist as an organization and the trust that has been built. We recognize the quality of service that Baptist provides to the community. We saw this bold and remarkable evolution of how Baptist is going to serve our community through this new health care campus, and we absolutely wanted to be a part of it.”
FPL vows to remain an engaged partner that continues to support all people in the communities where its team members live, work, play and raise their families. Through its corporate investments, FPL empowers healthy and happy team members and customers to continue contributing to the vibrant communities in which they live. Baptist is grateful to FPL for its generous donation, time, volunteers and most of all, giving spirit.