AS FRIENDS AND families get ready for New Year’s Eve, compassionate Peninsula Daily News readers continue to help their neighbors through the “hand up, not a handout” Peninsula Home Fund.
Tuesday is the end of our holiday season campaign — and while the fund never closes, Tuesday is the last day to make a donation and get a tax deduction for 2013.
For 25 years, the Home Fund has helped thousands of families in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
It has demonstrated, time and again, how even a seemingly modest sum of money can relieve, or vastly improve, the lives of families across the
North Olympic Peninsula — thanks to our readers opening their hearts.
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 — https://secure.peninsuladailynews.com/homefund.
You can also use the donation coupon on this page — and mail it with a check dated today or Tuesday.
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.
You can make a difference.
Our thanks to all of you who have donated to this year’s Home Fund campaign.
As of our last deposit at First Federal on Thursday, $216,745 from people and organizations in Jefferson and Clallam counties had been donated to the Home Fund.
The $268,137 raised by the Home Fund in 2012 allowed OlyCAP to help more than 3,100 families, many with children, and individuals in 2013.
These are your neighbors, with nowhere else to turn.
These are local people that our partner, nonprofit Olympic Community Action Programs, wouldn’t have been able to assist otherwise.
With heavy demand expected again in 2014, only a few dollars are left from last year’s campaign and will go with the new money right away to make sure no one falls through the cracks during the dark days of winter, the most demanding time of the year.
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.
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.
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, Peninsula Home Fund contributions often are used in conjunction with money from other agencies, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
To apply for a grant from the Peninsula Home Fund, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
While most of the Peninsula 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.
