Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) last month pledged to match employee and retiree contributions up to half a million dollars for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. This gift, one of the largest in the New Jersey energy company’s history, has the potential to amount to $1 million in aid. This support was in addition to the company’s employee volunteers already en route to the disaster stricken area.

PSEG’s utility subsidiary Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) deployed some 90 electric delivery workers and two dozen work vehicles at the beginning of September to help restore power to the hard-hit Gulf region. The contingent traveled 700 miles before arriving in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and traveled another 500 miles before reaching their destination in Alabama. PSE&G concentrated their initial restoration efforts in Mobile, Alabama, in response to a call for help from Southern Company which has electric utilities in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.

PSEG’s contributions will go to The Red Cross, The Salvation Army, America’s Second Harvest, and a yet-to-be-named non profit organization providing relief in the Mobile area where PSE&G will helping to restore power.

New Jersey’s Office on Volunteerism has said that monetary contributions are the best way to provide assistance. PSEG’s sizeable financial contributions will allow professional relief organizations to purchase what is most urgently needed by disaster victims and to pay for the transportation to distribute supplies.

PSEG and its employees and retirees have a long history of providing help for families and communities in times of need. Collectively they have donated $1 million for September 11th relief efforts, $100,000 for tsunami relief and $75,000 to the Gulf coast area after hurricanes ripped through the area last fall.