Red dirt turned to rock and desert during the 14-hour journey behind the wheel of a bucket truck, as two of Central Rural Electric Cooperative’s linemen rolled into New Mexico, ready to build line where power had never reached.

Central’s line foremen, Jayson Cross and Kyle Williams, volunteered for the Light Up Navajo project alongside eight other linemen from cooperatives across the state.

“This wasn’t the typical mutual aid work where people were waiting to get their electricity back on after a bad storm,” Williams said. “This was for people who have never had electricity and were just excited to have access to power. This project helped change the way they live.”

The Light Up Navajo project took place in Shiprock, New Mexico, and is part of an initiative that began in 2019 through the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority to connect power to Navajo families without.

“We were able to see the lights come on for the first time in a few of the homes and it meant so much to them,” Cross said. “One woman told me she was excited and hoping that having electricity would bring her family back home.”

While on the project, Central linemen learned that some of the residents had access to solar panels, which helped power a small refrigerator, but many of the residents didn’t have access to any type of power.

“Those who didn’t have access to solar would drive into town, which was an hour away, and would purchase two days’ worth of food at a time and keep it stored in coolers,” Williams said.

The desert and mountainous terrain provided steep hills and canyons that were nothing like the Oklahoma clay Central’s linemen were used to working in. The greatest impact on the linemen wasn’t the terrain, but meeting with the residents they were building lines for.

“We were talking with two of the locals who had children and being able to see how happy they were to have access to electricity,” Williams said. “That’s the moment that made me realise the importance of what we were doing.”