On the next frosty morning, walk out your front door, close your eyes and imagine how it must feel to wake up in an RV, a tent or even just under a tarp with no external source of warmth readily available at all for the foreseeable future. Beginning this time of year, an alarmingly high number of people in our community experience just this reality daily!

In 2020, a small group of community volunteers built on what Christopher Gray started in 2018. POP (Propane's Our Project), a program aimed to help such homeless people keep warm, was created. Each week during the cold fall - winter period (20-25 weeks), a team of drivers goes out to collect empty propane tanks from individuals at various sites, gets the tanks refilled and promptly returned to them. This charitable service benefits children, women and men of all ages. It aims to provide basic warmth in hopes of keeping each alive and healthy. The POP mission fills a gap that is not provided locally by our formal Corvallis social services. There are explicit agencies in our community that provide food, clothing and healthcare resources, but none that provide warmth except perhaps under the most extreme weather circumstances.

Last year, our project filled on average ~50 5 gal propane tanks per week at an average weekly cost of ~$500. The total expenditure for POP last season was just shy of $12,000. Speaking with various people who are tuned into and knowledgeable of the homeless crisis in our Corvallis community, we anticipate the financial need of POP this year will be about the same.

We now ask for your financial help. We have currently acquired sufficient monetary donation to operate POP weekly for a month or so, beginning November 2, 2023. Any contribution you can make would help assure POP can operate for the entire 2023-24 cold weather season and would be most appreciated.

Donations can be made on-line, by credit card using this GoFundMe account. If you would rather make a donation off-line, a check made out to “Corvallis Friends Meeting” with “POP fund” specified in the ‘for’ line can be mailed to:

Corvallis Friends Meeting

3311 NW Polk

Corvallis, OR 97330

All contributions are tax deductible.

Thank you in advance for your thoughtfulness and consideration of this cause.