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.
On little yellow notes and fancy stationery and inside Christmas cards like the one this father used, people often say “thank you” when they send in donations for the Peninsula Daily News’ Peninsula Home Fund.
And, often, the Home Fund stirs powerful memories of their own experiences.
But, respectfully, they have it all wrong.
The Home Fund succeeds only because of the generous support of PDN readers.
These good people power the Home Fund.
Thank you.
For 25 years, the Home Fund has helped thousands of families in Clallam and Jefferson counties when there is 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.
All contributions are fully IRS tax-deductible.
And this coming Tuesday, Dec. 31, is the last day to make a donation and get a tax deduction for 2013.
Donations to date
To donate online by credit card, click on https://secure.peninsuladailynews.com/homefund.
Our thanks to all of you who have donated to this year’s Home Fund campaign.
As we close in on the final days of the campaign, you have raised $216,745 so far for use in 2014.
PDN readers rallied to contribute $268,137 in 2012 for use this year.
There is still time, and reason, to help for 2014.
You can make a difference.
Since Jan. 1, the carefully rationed fund has helped about 3,100 households and individuals.
As we move into winter, the toughest period of the year, all of the money collected in 2012 is expected to be exhausted by Tuesday.
All the money collected stays 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 PDN, screening the applicants and distributing the funds.
Shoestring philanthropy
The Home Fund is not a welfare program.
The average amount of help this year was about $69.86 per family, 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 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.
While most of the Peninsula Home Fund money is raised every year between Thanksgiving and Dec. 31, the fund itself never closes.
Donations of any amount are always welcome.
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 and publisher, at 360-417-3500.
Or email him at jbrewer@peninsuladailynews.com.
