By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

Constellation Energy was chosen as the recipient of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce’s (SCCCC) 2025 Community Impact Award, before more than 100 community business leaders who attended the Chamber’s annual meeting and breakfast on Feb. 19 at the Hartefeld National Country Club. 

Now in its fourth year, the award recognizes a Chamber member for-profit business-in-good-standing that positively impacts the community through its active support of local non-profit organizations and philanthropic causes. Nominee submissions are measured by total volunteer hours, non-profit board leadership, in-kind contributions and financial donations, “but most critically, we look for non-profit impact,” said SCCCC president and CEO Cheryl Kuhn. “How has that member business helped the community?”

“Constellation Energy is a Fortune 200 company doing the right things for the planet and the right things for our community,” said Drew Cope of Cope Construction and Renovations, whose company was the recipient of the 2024 Community Impact Award, and presented the award to Ronald J. DiSabatino, Jr. of Constellation Energy. “As the nation’s leading producer of carbon-free energy, the company is supplying power energy means while also going the extra mile to uplift communities through volunteerism, donations and support of local charitable organizations.”

DiSabatino expressed gratitude to Constellation Energy’s employees and leadership. He said that an outgoing board member of the company told DiSabatino that one of Constellation Energy’s core values was the engagement its staff has with the surrounding community.

“I don’t think we could do it without the Chamber of Commerce, and more importantly, the Chamber members who are non-profits who take their time and energy to be active members and who look for people who share their vision and values,” he said.

DiSabatino recommended that businesses whose employees have an interest in charitable engagement with the community seek assistance through the SCCCC. 

“Your businesses depend on it,” he said. “We all work and live and thrive in this community based on the broader health of the community and the folks who care about it. If you can find those people, engage with them, engage your employees with them, and you will find that it will be a better place to work, a better place to do business and a better place to live.”

Feller named new Board Chairman

James E. Turner, the immediate past chairman of the agency’s Board of Directors, introduced Jason Feller of Crystal Clean Canz, LLC as the Chamber’s Chairman of the Board for 2025.

“We all grow together when we set our values in the same united direction,” Feller said. “I stand here as part of the board of directors who are comprised of business leaders of all different sizes, goals and visions for our own businesses, but our unified goal is for a strong and thriving business community in southern Chester County. The mission of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce is to strengthen, support and promote its membership, and we align our vision to that.

“Our directors are reaching out to the new members who have joined in the recent year. The more we know about you as members by listening, the more we can promote you, provide support and encourage you to participate.

“In closing, I look forward to connecting with you, our members, building our business muscles, carrying each other across the finish line and shouting your name in celebration.”

In other Chamber business, Turner also provided the audience with an overview of SCCCC’s accomplishments in 2024, that included supporting smaller businesses to help them strategically manage their growth; accelerating its scholarship and education funds; and its work with future business leaders through its Rising Sophomore and Juniors and Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week initiatives.

Turner urged those in attendance to sponsor young people in their communities and work together. 

 “We live in a time when the people we used to depend on, we can no longer depend on, so we might need to depend on each other in other to get things done,” he said. “We’re not looking for the government to do it. We need businesspeople to make sure that the next generation of businesspeople are supported.

“In order for us to move forward in the future, we need to remember that it is collaboration that is our survival tactic. We only make it because the person next to us makes it. If we don’t help each other get to where we need to get to, then we are going to be left alone. The DNA for this chamber and this community has been working together.”

Turner reflected on the impact that policy changes on the national level will have on the southern Chester County agricultural community.

“We have dairy farmers and mushroom growers who are about to go through some challenges, so our agricultural base is in need of the rest of the community help them figure out what they need to do,” he said. “As we go forward in 2025, let’s stay resilient. Let’s stay connected. Let’s continue to collaborate and let’s continue to win, because we stay together.”

In addition to Feller, the Chamber’s Board of Directors for 2025 will include Chairman-elect Christine Gordon of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management; Vice Chairman Melissa Dietrich from Longwood Gardens; Treasurer Douglas S. Hook from Herbein CPAs + Advisors; and Secretary Yolande Raath from DataConnectX. Turner will serve as the immediate past chairman.

In addition, Box Cox of BHHC Consulting, Pauline Garcia-Allen of the Oxford Borough and Dan Norkavage will also join the Chamber’s Board of Directors. 

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].