Basic Needs/Social Services
Anonymous Local Donor Brings Hope to Storm Victims
“Many nonprofits supporting our community could not exist without the generosity of Litchfield County fundholders and donors like those who established the Local Area Fund”
- Guy Rovezzi NCCF president.
Months after superstorm Sandy, many Connecticut residents continued to struggle to recover their livelihoods and to provide nutritious food, safe shelter, transportation, clothing, and medical supplies for their families.
An anonymous fund holder family from the Northwest CT Community Foundation stepped in to help. They requested a grant for $50,000 from their Local Area Fund to assist individuals and families continuing to struggle to recover from the storm.
The Community Foundation presented the $50,000 grant to the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut, which was working with the United Way of Southeastern Connecticut to develop a flexible application process for storm victims to apply for financial assistance.
The grant provided support for Connecticut families who worked at fast food restaurants and retail stores and lost weeks of income due to damaged buildings and roads and lost hundreds of dollars’ worth of groceries due to extended power outages. Many of the recipients were single-parent families without family support in the area. Recipients suffered loses that were not covered by FEMA or personal insurance.
“Hurricane Sandy was a financial tipping point into distress for many Connecticut families,” said Alice F. Fitzpatrick, President of the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut. “We were surprised to discover the breadth and depth of hardship triggered by lost wages, even for a brief period of time.”
After seeing the depth of the requests for help, and the relief their initial grant provided, The fundholder family provided another $50,000 from their fund, a gifts that provided comfort, relief and hope to hundreds.
