SEQUIM — Soon after hearing his gleeful shouts of joy followed by a splash of water, Melissa Bascue noticed her eldest son wasn’t wearing his glasses.
It seemed just moments ago Melissa Bascue and her husband George Bascue had arrived at Lake Sutherland to enjoy a special day with their three children: Madison, 11, Asher, 9, and George Jr., 5.
It was Asher who spied the slide on a lake-side dock and made a beeline straight for it.
The eager boy wasted no time in climbing the ladder and taking a ride on the slide that plunged him down into the lake’s blue-green water.
When he popped back up to the surface, his glasses had vanished. In his haste he’d forgotten to take them off.
Search as they may it seemed as if the lake had swallowed up Asher’s glasses forever.
Without them, his eyesight was limited. He couldn’t see to read or to even catch a ball.
“He slid into the water and lost them. That was it,” Bascue said.
As the family searched for the glasses with no results, alarm bells went off in her head.
She’d just that week purchased new school clothes and supplies for the children and knew it would be a few more weeks before her husband, who works at a Sequim-area restaurant, and she, who at the time worked part-time, would have the money to purchase new ones.
With three active children who wear prescription glasses, Bascue said she tries to always have some money set aside for the occasional broken or lost eye glasses, but this time, “I’d just spend all my extra funds so I was like, ‘oh no!’ ”
She feared since Asher couldn’t read without his glasses he’d quickly fall behind in his schoolwork and then spend the rest of the year trying to catch up.
Bascue discussed the problem with her boss, who suggested she try approaching the Olympic Community Action Programs office in Port Angeles for help.
OlyCAP, the Peninsula’s No. 1 emergency care agency in our two counties, oversees the Home Fund for the PDN, screening the applicants and carefully distributing the funds to those who need that “hand up.”
While she was hesitate to approach OlyCAP to ask for help, she said her fears were quickly set aside when, “everyone was so kind and helpful there.”
After meeting with a case worker, she was “told to go to Walmart to see how much the new glasses would cost,” Bascue said.
So off she went to the Sequim Walmart Supercenter’s vision clinic. She was then able to return to OlyCAP with a written statement of cost.
“I handed it in and was told they’d let me know,” she said.
Warned the approval process could take a few days, she was pleasantly surprised when she received a phone call that same day saying her request was approved.
Consequently, she returned to OlyCAP to pick up a voucher for $87 made out to Walmart and was able to purchase the replacement glasses that same day.
“It only took Walmart a couple of days to get the glasses in and as a result Asher had his new glasses in time for school,” Bascue said, delighted.
“I was so relieved.”
While the family wasn’t in dire straits, the problem of not being able to purchase new glasses for her son was huge to Bascue.
“This help has meant so much to me and my family. We’re very appreciative,” she said.
“We try to be independent and not ask for help, but now that we have, it’s so comforting to know there is some place we can go to get help and there are people who are willing to help.”
Every year, the Peninsula Daily News’ “hand up, not a handout” Peninsula Home Fund provides new prescription eyeglasses to residents of Jefferson and Clallam counties.
The Peninsula Home Fund — a safety net for local residents when there is nowhere else to turn — is seeking contributions for its annual holiday season fundraising campaign.
From Port Townsend to Forks, from Quilcene and Brinnon to Sequim and LaPush, the Home Fund helps children, teens, families and the elderly to get through an emergency situation.
Money from the Home Fund is used for hot meals for seniors in Jefferson and Clallam counties; warm winter coats for kids; keeping the heat on, home repairs, clothing, furniture, food, rent and other essentials for a low-income family; needed prescription drugs; dental work; safe, drug-free temporary housing; eyeglasses — the list goes on and on.
The Home Fund is not a welfare program.
The average amount of help is usually below $100 — this year has been $70 per person — with a limit of one grant from the fund within 12 months.
The maximum amount the Home Fund provides a needy household is $350 per year.
No money is deducted by the Peninsula Daily News for administration, fees or any other overhead.
Every penny contributed goes to OlyCAP to support our neighbors in need in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
All contributions are IRS tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law for the year in which the check is written.(See accompanying box)
Your personal information is kept confidential.
The PDN does not rent, sell, give or otherwise share your address or other information with anyone or make any other use of it.
Individuals, couples, families, businesses, churches, service organizations and school groups set a record for Home Fund contributions in 2014: $271,981.
With heavy demand again this year, the carefully rationed fund is being depleted rapidly.
Since Jan. 1, the Home Fund has helped nearly 2,700 individuals and households, many with children.
As of Nov. 15, approximately $205,000 has been spent for Home Fund grants.
And as we move into winter, the toughest period of the year, most all of the remaining money — $75,000 — is expected to be spent before Dec. 31.
To apply for a Peninsula Home Fund grant, contact one of the three OlyCAP offices:
■ Its Port Angeles office is at 228 W. First St., Suite J (Armory Square Mall); 360-452-4726. For Port Angeles and Sequim area residents.
■ Its Port Townsend office is at 823 Commerce Loop; 360-385-2571. For Jefferson County residents.
■ The Forks office is at 421 Fifth Ave.; 360-374-6193. For West End residents.
Leave a message in the voice mail box at any of the three numbers, and a Home Fund caseworker will phone you back.
OlyCAP’s website is www.olycap.org; email is action@olycap.org.
If you have any questions about the fund, phone Terry Ward, PDN publisher, at 360-417-3500 or email tward@peninsuladailynews.com.
