PORT TOWNSEND — Jim Tyler smiles and says he has been so blessed.
He rattles off a list of those blessings that include a wife and family of which he is very proud — and a faith that helps see him through his difficulties.
“I have come to understand that a great family and a strong spiritual life offset one’s physical limitations.”
Despite his upbeat outlook, however, it is apparent from the presence of his service animal, a wonderful dog named Ishta, that Jim indeed has physical challenges.
Tyler owned his own landscaping design and construction company for 30 years.
“I worked on large jobs, like Ronald Reagan’s ranch in California, and small jobs too. I loved working outside.”
For 20 of those years, he also ran a video production company.
“I was always busy — and I never went to the doctor,” he recalls.
But his life took a troubling turn when he was diagnosed in 1997 with the first of several incurable illnesses.
“I started to lose energy and then to ache all over,” he says.
“I thought it was arthritis or something like that.
“Sometimes, though, my body would just go numb. I had no feeling in my extremities.”
Then Tyler started passing out.
“I was eventually diagnosed with systemic lupus,” a condition in which your immune system turns against you, “but that was just the beginning.
“I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia, then peripheral myopathy, then . . . “
His voice trails off.
“Imagine feeling like you have the flu all the time.
“I can never sleep through the night, I’m always hurting somewhere, and I am prone to falling.”
By late 1998, Tyler was forced to give up his work.
“We sold our $300,000 home in North Bend and moved to a much less expensive home in Port Townsend hoping we could sustain ourselves.”
Tyler was told that he could expect disability payments from the Social Security Administration within six months.
It took two years.
He finally called his congressman who was able to help, but by then the family’s finances were decimated.
OlyCAP — Olympic Community Action Programs — “helped us on two occasions,” he recalls.
It used the Peninsula Daily News’ Peninsula Home Fund families to give Tyler a “a hand up, not a handout.
The Home Fund was tapped “to help us with a utility payment, and then they got me in to see a dentist.
“I had been unable to chew on one side of my mouth for six months.”
OlyCAP has managed the Peninsula Home Fund for the PDN since the fund’s inception in 1989.
The fund is reflective of a giving, caring community that doesn’t want to see the needs of Jefferson and Clallam county residents like Jim Tyler go unaddressed.
Tyler is cheerful and grateful despite the seeming unfairness of his circumstances
He is grateful to live in a giving community.
“Ishta, my dog, is a wonderful companion, and she is trained to go get help if I fall,” says Tyler.
But she can’t pay the bills.
Jefferson and Clallam
From Thanksgiving through Dec. 31, the Peninsula Home Fund — a safety net for residents in Jefferson and Clallam counties when there is nowhere else to turn — is seeking contributions for its annual holiday season fund-raising campaign.
The Peninsula Home Fund is a unique, nonprofit program.
* No money is deducted for administration or other overhead.
* All contributions are fully IRS tax-deductible.
* Your personal information is kept confidential.
The Peninsula Daily News does not rent, sell, give or otherwise share your address or other information with anyone, or make any other use of it.
* Money is used to give families and individuals “a hand up, not a handout” to get through an emergency situation.
* All instances of help are designed to get an individual or family through the crisis — and back on the path to self-sufficiency.
* Every penny, every dollar, contributed to the Peninsula Home Fund goes to making life better for children, teens, families and the elderly across the North Olympic Peninsula — from Port Townsend to Forks, from Quilcene and Brinnon to LaPush.
All the money collected goes — without any deductions — to families in Jefferson and Clallam counties for hot meals for seniors, warm winter coats for kids, home repairs for the low income, needed prescription drugs, dental work, safe, drug-free temporary housing, eyeglasses — the list goes on and on.
* Peninsula Home Fund case managers work with each individual or family to develop a plan to become financially stable — and avoid a recurrence of the emergency that prompted aid from the fund.
* Individuals, couples, businesses and school groups set a new record for contributions in 2003 — $77,608.
All of that money is expected to be spent by Dec. 31.
* The average “hand up” is $100. Home Fund contributions are also used in conjunction with money from churches, service clubs and other donors, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
* To apply for a grant from the fund, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
* If you have any questions about the fund, contact John Brewer, Peninsula Daily News editor and publisher, at 360-417-3500.
How to donate
A gift of any size is welcome.
Peninsula Home Fund has never been a campaign of heavy hitters.
If you can contribute only a few dollars, please don’t hesitate because you think it won’t make a difference.
Every gift makes a difference, regardless of its size.
As in past years, the PDN is publishing stories every Wednesday and Sunday through the end of December on how the Peninsula Home Fund operates.
