Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Dominion Energy announced July 23 that 11 historically black colleges and universities in Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina will receive support through a $35 million initiative aimed at promoting higher education equity, a company media release states. The six-year “HBCU Promise” program will provide $25 million in funding to select institutions.

Additionally, a $10 million scholarship fund will support African American and underrepresented minority students across the company’s service territory.

“We have all been witness to our country’s evolving conversation on race and social justice,” said Thomas F. Farrell II, the company’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “The country is changing, and we have been looking for ways that we can make a difference. Investing in these important institutions — which serve as a springboard for social and economic mobility for so many — is one way we can help.”

In selecting the institutions, the company looked at a range of factors, including locations with a significant customer presence, past partnerships and opportunities to make immediate impact.

In structuring the partnerships, the company will focus on four general areas: operating needs, urgent capital needs, endowment and scholarships. The schools are:

Virginia

Hampton University, Hampton

Norfolk State University, Norfolk

Virginia Union University, Richmond

Virginia State University, Petersburg

South Carolina

Allen University, Columbia

Benedict College, Columbia

Claflin University, Orangeburg

South Carolina State University, Orangeburg

Ohio

Central State University, Wilberforce, OH

Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, OH

North Carolina

North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro

Details about the Dominion Energy Educational Equity scholarship fund will be provided later.

More than 7 million customers in 20 states energize their homes and businesses with electricity or natural gas from Dominion Energy, headquartered in Richmond, Va.

Dominion Energy North Carolina provides electric service in the 16 most northeastern Tar Heel counties.