AS FRIENDS AND families get ready for New Year’s Eve, compassionate Peninsula Daily News readers continue to help through the “hand up, not a handout” Peninsula Home Fund.
Of all the gifts they give this holiday season, their donations to the Home Fund could mean the most.
Wednesday is the end of our holiday season fundraising campaign — and while the Home Fund never closes, Wednesday is the last day to make a donation and get a tax donation for 2014.
For 26 years, the Home Fund has been a safety net for Jefferson and Clallam residents when there is no where else to turn.
2015 is now
What the Home Fund will do for our neighbors in Jefferson and Clallam counties in 2015 . . . depends on how much is raised in 2014.
This year, using the money raised in 2013, the Home Fund helped 1,258 families — 3,951 individuals.
The last $200 from the fund went to three families Christmas week.
These are your neighbors.
These are local people that our partner, OlyCAP — nonprofit Olympic Community Action Programs, — wouldn’t have been able to help otherwise.
The $200 was all that remained of the $268,389 contributed by individuals, couples, businesses, churches, organizations and school groups last year.
Will we collect that amount this year?
As the New Year looms, $211,150 had been donated from people and organizations as of Monday’s deposit at First Federal.
With heavy demand expected again in 2015, the money raised this year will go to work right away to make sure no one falls through the cracks during the dark days of winter, the most demanding time of the year.
“There are many lives that can be touched in 2015 through the Peninsula Home Fund — and it all depends on what is donated right now,” says Geoff Crump, CEO of OlyCAP.
$20 — and $10,000
Recent donors:
■ A sixth-grader who gave us the $20 he got from his grandmother at Christmas.
■ A Port Angeles businessman donated an astonishing $10,000.
■ Two Sequim donors — who one also donated $10,000, another who converted stock worth more than $14,000.
■ A woman in Joyce whose bake sale brought in $56. The cash arrived with a tray of peanut-butter cookies.
■ Employees of Clallam County Road Department — $400.
■ Local 1619 City of Port Angeles Employees Union, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees — $300.
■ Olympic Peninsula Base, United States Submarine Veterans, Inc., Chimacum — $100.
■ Anonymous in Sequim — $500.
■ Anonymous in Port Angeles — $50. In memory of Deborah Hollingsworth.
■ Anonymous in Port Ludlow — $200.In honor of U.S. service personnel.
■ Anonymous in Nordland — $10.
■ Anonymous in Port Townsend — $100. In honor of Joanne Tyler.
All the money collected for the Home Fund stays in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
And 100 percent goes to OlyCAP, the Peninsula’s No. 1 emergency care agency in our two counties.
It oversees the Home Fund for the PDN, screening the applicants and distributing the funds.
‘I’m a donor, too’
Says OlyCAP CEO Crump:
“Being able to provide these essential services in 2015 depends on our giving now.
“My family gave this year on behalf of our daughter, Lucille, who is two, so that she can know the impact we can make locally when we all come together to help out.”
All contributions, whether $100, $5,000 or $10, are greatly appreciated and needed, and are fully IRS tax-deductible.
To donate online today using a credit card, push the “Home Fund — Click Here to Donate” button at www.peninsuladailynews.com.
Or go directly to the donation webpage — ttps://secure.peninsuladailynews.com/homefund.
You can also use the donation coupon on this page — and mail it with a check dated today or Wednesday.
If you wish to make your donation by phone, or have any questions about the fund, call John Brewer, PDN publisher and editor, at 360-417-3500.
Or email him at john.brewer@peninsuladailynews.com.
‘Shoestring philanthropy’
The Home Fund has demonstrated, time and again, how even a seemingly modest sum of money can relieve, or vastly improve, the lives of families across the Peninsula — thanks to our readers opening their hearts.
The Home Fund is not a welfare program.
The average amount of help this year was $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.
■ A bus pass for a job seeker barely scraping by.
■ Helping cover back rent for a family hoping to stave off eviction.
■ Eyeglasses for a struggling high school student.
■ Energy and transportation needs, warm winter coats for kids, home repairs for the low-income, needed 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 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, Home Fund contributions often are used in conjunction with money from other agencies, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
For a Home Fund grant
To apply for a 2015 grant from the Home Fund, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
While most of the Home Fund money is raised every year between Thanksgiving and Dec. 31, the fund is open year-round.
Donations of any amount always are welcome.
Many people send gifts to the fund to mark a special occasion or remember a loved one.
