Heating Your Neighbors Home

The 20th year of the Windham County Heat Fund has made one thing heartbreakingly clear: The need for heating assistance is not shrinking—it’s growing.

When Daryl Pillsbury and I started this fund, we thought it would be a temporary problem needing a temporary fix, a stopgap for a few hard winters when fuel prices were unusually high. But we quickly learned the true problem runs deeper and isn't going anywhere.

As economic inequality widens, more and more of our neighbors are being forced to choose between paying for heat, rent, food, medicine, and other essential needs. Heat is a necessity—but for many, it’s the first thing to go.

Our goal has always been to raise $50,000 a year and we exceeded that this year. Over the past 20 years we have raised over one million dollars and provided help in about 2000 cases, whether individuals or families.

We ask people to fill out an application and we try to vet all applications as best we can, collaborating with Southeast Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) and other human service organizations. We work closely with the front line people in the office of local fuel dealers. They are part social workers and they know many of the trials and tribulations of their customers.

The heat fund has no web site. We do not solicit funds by mail. Sending a reminder to local media outlets a few times a year has been adequate to remind people to help us and most people send us a check every year. This community is not only very generous but extremely faithful in contributing to our efforts.

At the end of this heating season our funds were too low to help a number of people. Eugene Uman, Sarah Ozga and the people who support the Vermont Jazz Center put together a fundraiser for us in March and we raised $6700. We were able to meet the needs of people who ran out of fuel assistance allocations and we have a little left over for next year.

The heat fund received $53,836 from 113 donors including 105 individuals, seven corporations, one church and three grantees. Fuel assistance was given to 107 individuals/ families and we paid $49,624.09 for all kinds of fuel. We only give money to fuel dealers, not individuals. Most years we have no overhead because Daryl and I take no salary and we pay for things such as stamps out of our own pockets. This year we had to pay $710 for the Jazz Center fundraiser expenses, but that was our only expense.

We want to thank all of people who helped us this year including Dave Snyder and Sarah Coffey, Phil Feidelseit, The Brattleboro Sunrise Rotary, the local Postal Workers Union and the Guilford Community Church.

We had hoped that it would be business as usual next year and our regular supporters would be enough to meet the needs of Windham County’s more vulnerable residents. Sadly, that will not be the case because the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has been gutted and it looks like there will be no federal help for fuel assistance next year.

Trump fired all of the employees who administer the program and that means that, although the funds are available, there is no one to administer them. I am trying to find out how many Windham County residents receive LIHEAP money and how much flows into our county. The state of Vermont receives $21 million each year. There are 14 counties in the state and if distribution is based on that number equally our county would need $2.1 million to make up the shortfall.

Daryl and I are exploring ways to supplement our fundraising this coming year but we will not be able to come close to the $2.1 million figure. Senators Welch and Sanders are making efforts to fix the LIHEAP problem but it is not clear if their efforts will succeed.

With your help, we can prevent vulnerable members of our community—elders, families with young children, and people with disabilities—from suffering through another harsh Vermont winter without heat.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

We’ll never stop fighting to prevent cold, hardship, and crisis in our community. With your help, we won’t have to.

Thank you for your faith, your generosity, and your continued support.

— Richard Davis & Daryl Pillsbury

Co-founders, Windham County Heat Fund