Blog#224-2/21/25
LOCAL SOLUTIONS PROTECT US ALL
By
Richard Davis
On Saturday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. the Windham County Heat Fund will hold a benefit concert in conjunction with the Vermont Jazz Center. It is 20 years since we started the fund and the need never diminishes. This concert is not so much of a celebration but more of a lamentation of the fact that the fund still needs to exist. On a hopeful note, we do not rely on any government funding for our efforts and that means our money is local and it stays local.
This has been an unusual year for the fund. Although it is still February our statistics put us at the end of the season, meaning we are very low on funds because about 100 individuals and families have been provided with $48,850 in fuel while we have received $45,503 from individual donors, local businesses, churches and grantees. The surplus we had at the end of last year has made a big difference.
But numbers do not tell the real story. I want to share some of the life-altering situations that the people we help find themselves in. Once a year we provide fuel for an entire season for someone we feel is extremely needy. This year we helped a single parent with children. This person is facing a terminal cancer diagnosis and is struggling just to keep the family above water. We paid the family fuel bills for this year and that is one less worry.
This year, as in most years, we hear from people whose lives were torn apart by unanticipated illness, usually cancer. There have been at least four or five of these families we have talked to who not only are facing the disruption of treatment schedules for chemo and radiation but also the financial hardship of being fired from their jobs.
We need some kind of protection for these people, but it won’t happen on the federal level anytime soon. It is common for someone who has had a job for many years to be fired when they reveal a cancer diagnosis. I have even seen this happen at our local hospital. Imagine what it must feel like to suddenly have no health insurance and no income while facing a life-threatening illness. The heat fund gives them a small boost, but they need much more. It is an issue that begs for legislation, at least on the state level.
Then there are working people, often single mothers, who have two or three jobs and still find that they cannot pay all of their bills in a timely manner. They often pay rent first, skimp on food and turn down the thermostat to 60 degrees or less and hope they can get by. One mother told me that her children’s friends won’t come to play at their house because the place is too cold. A new kind of stigma.
These people are your friends and neighbors who are probably suffering in silence. They may even live next door or down the road, but you have no idea what they are going through. I suspect the people the heat fund deals with are just the tip of the iceberg.
Elderly Vermonters are a self-sufficient hardy bunch but too many of them are trying to survive on their monthly Social Security checks. It is an impossible task in these times and those are the people who don’t want what they call a “handout”. Once in a while a neighbor will call us to tell us that the elderly person next door needs help but won’t ask for it. If we find their fuel dealer we send an anonymous delivery of fuel. So far, no one has told the fuel delivery person to go away.
We usually don’t ask for money at this time of year but it has been a cold winter and we need your help. Donations can be sent to Richard Davis, 63 Cedar St., Brattleboro, VT 05301 or made directly at Brattleboro Savings and Loan.
Please help us pack the Vermont Jazz Center on March 29 so we can save a few more people from having to suffer through a cold winter. The Rhythm Future Quartet will be providing an evening of Gypsy jazz. For more information check out the Vermont Jazz Center web site: vtjazz.org. And there just may be a surprise for audience on March 29.
