Capstone Community Action's Food Shelf in Barre. Courtesy photo.
Capstone Community Action’s “Fuel Your Neighbors” campaign, in partnership with the Vermont State Employees Credit Union, raised $301,649 to support emergency food and heating assistance.
It has been another challenging winter with extended cold snaps combined with dramatic increases in fuel and food costs. This has required many households to make difficult decisions on basic needs such as heat and food. This winter, Capstone Community Action has again assisted hundreds of families in central Vermont with fuel purchases, safety measures, and overdue bills so that central Vermonters could start receiving fuel deliveries again. At the same time, Capstone’s food shelf in Barre has fed over 1,200 individuals from 617 households. This work is enhanced by a winter fundraiser.
“We are incredibly proud to share that more than 30,000 central Vermonters have benefited from our ‘Fuel Your Neighbors’ campaign since it began in 2016,” explained Sue Minter, Capstone’s executive director. “These are hard times for all of us, but especially for our low-income neighbors. Capstone’s ability to help local families fill the gap on basic needs, especially during a pandemic, is fundamental to our mission. Capstone is especially grateful for the support of so many businesses and individuals who got behind our campaign to make sure our neighbors did not go to bed hungry or cold this winter.”
“Fuel Your Neighbors” is a campaign, in partnership with VSECU, that ran from November 30 — Giving Tuesday — through the end of March, to raise awareness and funds to support vulnerable Vermonters with food and heat this winter. This is the sixth year Capstone and VSECU have teamed up on this effort, raising a total of $920,000 since 2016.
There were numerous generous business sponsors this year including VSECU; the University of Vermont Health Network — Central Vermont Medical Center; North Country Federal Credit Union; Red Hen Baking Company; the Alchemist; Lawson’s Finest Liquids; rbTechnologies, LLC; Front Porch Forum; BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont; Mutual of America Financial Group; Hickok & Boardman Insurance Group; Union Mutual; Vermont Gas Systems; Passumpsic Bank; Frankenburg Agency, Inc.; Main Street Landing; Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom; WDEV Radio; and The Point Radio.
