January-February 2024
by Laura Emery, Staff Writer
The 2023 Cooperative Living magazine Facebook Live Event — “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree!” — took place on Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. This was Cooperative Living’s sixth
time hosting a holiday Facebook live event. The live event was produced by Laura Emery, deputy editor of Cooperative Living magazine, and hosted by her 13-year-old daughter, Kara, along with Tommy Campbell, digital producer for VMDAEC.
A total of 17 gift cards and five Cooperative Living goodie bags were given out during the evening that was filled with holiday music-related challenges and other fun interactive activities. As of Dec. 20, the live event reached over 6,000 people according to FB statistics.
Randomly chosen winners covered a large swath of cooperative territory, including members of A&N Electric Cooperative, Community Electric Cooperative, Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, Choptank Electric Cooperative, Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative, Powell Valley Electric Cooperative, Southside Electric Cooperative and Prince George Electric Cooperative. To see a full list of the evening’s winners, please visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/cooperativeliving.
“The FB Live Event was so much fun and was exciting! It was my first time! Thank you for organizing a great event! I very much look forward to next year’s event!” says Stephanie Dodson West, a REC member.
Following the FB live event, readers were given the opportunity to earn additional entries into the grand prize giveaway of a $200 Amazon gift card. They were asked to engage in daily holiday-related posts that included naming a line from a favorite holiday movie, playing the Christmas song emoji game, choosing an elf name, finishing the sentence “All I want for Christmas is ____,” naming a holiday-related word starting with the letter of the reader’s first name, and discussing favorite holiday traditions.
The grand prize winner of a $200 Amazon Gift Card was Emily Baird of Luray, Va., a proud member of Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative for the last 8 years. Emily and her fiancé, Dale Price II, reside in Page County with their three young children, who also participated in the live event. “The two hosts were absolutely the best at keeping the event alive and fun!”
Emily and her family are thankful to be members of an electric cooperative. “We love the idea that all members have a voice in the leadership of the cooperative and that, by working together, the needs of the community are dealt with more effectively. We appreciate SVEC’s main mission — existing to best serve its members with members’ best interest, well-being and safety all in mind. We feel there is no better way to get [that] message out there to the members than through the Cooperative Living magazine …”
Baird says she and her family felt very “welcome” and “at home” during the FB Live event. “It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to participate in one of the many ways that Cooperative Living magazine gives back to its community! We had so much fun playing the Christmas song trivia games and, most of all, it was a beautiful way to bring holiday cheer to the ones needing it the most right now. Thank you for the laughs, and thank you for the chances to win great prizes! Words cannot express how grateful we are …” Emily says.
A&N Electric Cooperative member Deborah Faye Taylor has been watching Cooperative Living’s FB Live Event for years. “It was wonderful! Love your hosts, decorations and the sweaters!” she says.
Cooperative Living would like to thank every single person who joined and participated in the live event, as well as in the fun, interactive Facebook posts that followed the event. Laura Emery, Cooperative Living’s deputy editor, explains, “This fun, interactive annual Facebook live event that we produce each year is our way of giving back to our loyal readers and thanking them for their readership … while also spreading some holiday cheer. We look forward to next year’s live event being even bigger and better!”