By Timothy L. Hockett, For Peninsula Daily News
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is another in a series of articles on the Peninsula Home Fund. Make your donation by clicking on the Home Fund icon at right and printing out a coupon.
The next article will appear Wednesday.
FORKS – Can you imagine if you or a family member needed eyeglasses, but you couldn’t afford to buy them?
Could you read?
Could you drive or hold a job?
Could your children do their school work?
Could you be self-sufficient?
Every year, the Peninsula Daily News’ Peninsula Home Fund provides new prescription eyeglasses to residents of Jefferson and Clallam counties.
They are children, the elderly and the working poor who are desperately trying to make ends meet.
Without the help of the Peninsula Home Fund, these people would have to choose between purchasing food, medicine and clothes – or buying prescription eyeglasses at an average cost of $195.
Because of eyeglasses obtained through the Home Fund, children can succeed in school, unemployed adults can find jobs and support their families and seniors can remain independent and safe in the dignity of their own homes.
Each person’s story is different, but every pair of glasses obtained through the Home Fund made an immediate and real difference to a grateful Peninsula resident.
For one woman in Port Townsend, new glasses allow her to drive her car to work.
It lets her maintain her job as a health aide, and to read stories to her grandchildren.
With clear vision, life holds new promise.
Home Fund money is also used for hot meals for seniors, warm winter coats for kids, home repairs for the low income, needed prescription drugs, dental work, safe, drug-free temporary housing . . .
The list goes on and on – from Jan. 1 through Nov. 1 this year, the Home Fund has helped 1,745 individuals and families in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
All the money collected for the Peninsula Home Fund goes – without any deductions – to making life better for children, teens, families and the elderly across the North Olympic Peninsula.
Through the Home Fund, you can change a person’s life . . . in just a blink of an eye.
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Denny Garrett spent his career working very hard in the woods.
As a U.S. Forest Service employee, he spent much time outdoors in the Pacific Northwest in an industry that is pretty rough on the human body.
Most of his work life he spent in the Shelton area, but upon retirement he and his wife settled in Forks.
At the age of 72, Denny now lives alone.
His wife is confined to a nursing home in Olympia because she needs special care that could not be provided in Clallam or Jefferson counties.
Denny has a very difficult time seeing without his eyeglasses.
But he had let his glasses literally fall apart because he simply could not afford to get new ones.
His federal pension of $650 per month did not allow for any extra expense.
His wife’s Social Security (in about the same amount) was being used up completely to provide her medical care.
