EDITOR’S NOTE: You can donate to the Peninsula Home Fund by using the coupon on the right. Or you can donate online at https://secure.peninsuladailynews.com/homefund.
DEAR PENINSULA DAILY NEWS,
Thank you so much for continuing the Home Fund.
It was very important to our family when we needed help in 2009.
I had recently lost my job and had to take a lower-paying job and try to make ends meet.
We have three children and had fallen behind on our rent. We just needed a little help to make it through a rough patch.
We just moved back to this area, and I am very proud to contribute this $100 to help other families in need.
Thank you, PDN.
— Father of three, who hasn’t forgotten the help he received.
(This note and five $20 bills — enclosed in a Christmas card — came during the 2013 Home Fund drive.)
THE LOCALLY FOCUSED Peninsula Home Fund is a lot less flashy than the Ice Bucket Challenge.
The Challenge raised more than $115 million for the ALS Association, a national organization that funds research and treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
America always knows what to do about big causes.
And we can be counted on when there are tragedies like hurricanes Sandy and Katrina.
We donate food and clothing by the ton.
We send our first responders to join the recovery teams.
We text hundreds of thousands of $10 donations to the Red Cross.
But what truly defines a local community is the response when disasters play out behind closed blinds to the family in the rental next door.
The disasters that happen when you suddenly lose your job, or your power is shut off.
When you can’t do your schoolwork because you can’t see clearly and your family can’t afford a pair of glasses.
When rebuilding your life after you’ve fled an abusive partner starts off with no money to buy diapers for your newborn.
Fox News doesn’t show up for that, and there are no benefit concerts, no YouTube videos of people getting doused by buckets of ice water.
But there is the Home Fund.
‘Hand up, not hand out’
For 26 years, the Home Fund has offered a “hand up not a handout” to thousands of families in Clallam and Jefferson counties to get them through a crisis, giving a second chance to those who have nowhere else to turn.
Gifts to the Home Fund make a daily difference in lives across the North Olympic Peninsula — thanks to our readers’ generosity.
We can sum up the impact of the Home Fund in a single, powerful paragraph:
Since Jan. 1, this carefully rationed fund has helped more than 3,850 individuals (more than 1,230 families), building upon their strengths and deepening their connection to their community.
All Home Fund donations stay in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
And 100 percent goes to nonprofit Olympic Community Action Programs — OlyCAP — the No. 1 emergency care agency in our two counties.
It oversees the Home Fund for the Peninsula Daily News, screening the applicants and distributing the funds.
And . . . as we move into winter, the toughest period of the year, all of the money collected in the 2013 Home Fund drive is expected to be exhausted by Dec. 31.
Shoestring philanthropy
The Home Fund is not a welfare program.
The average amount of help is usually below $100 — this year it has been $69.16 per person — with a limit of one grant from the fund within 12 months.
But even though the dollar figure is small — some call it “shoestring philanthropy” — the impact can be big, in huge, life-changing ways:
Hot meals for seniors, meeting rent, energy and transportation needs, warm winter coats for kids, home repairs for the low-income, needed eyeglasses and prescription drugs, dental work, safe and drug-free temporary housing . . . the list goes on and on.
Instances of help are designed to get an individual or family through a crisis — and every effort is also made to put them back on the path to self-sufficiency.
That’s the “hand up, not a handout” focus of the fund.
In many instances, Peninsula Home Fund case managers at OlyCAP work with individuals or families to develop a plan to become financially stable — and avoid a recurrence of the emergency that prompted aid from the fund.
And, as needed, Peninsula Home Fund contributions are often used in conjunction with money from other agencies, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
To apply for a Peninsula Home Fund grant, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
If you have any questions about the fund, phone John Brewer, PDN publisher and editor, at 360-417-3500.
Or email him at jbrewer@peninsuladailynews.com.
