Giving Fund has raised $62K+ for Family Centers and P2P
Neighbors still need help
GREENWICH — The mechanical room beneath Hamilton Avenue School has been quiet in recent months as the row of noisy heat pumps have sat inactive. The room will likely continue to be quiet, at least for a few more months, until officials decide what to do with the system.
In the meantime, a pair of thick black hoses and a tangle of power cords snake out of the room, up the stairs and out the back door to a mobile air conditioner, big enough to be hauled by a truck. This unit, which was brought in from Texas, costs the town about $20,000 a month to rent and even more when it’s running.
The Representative Town Meeting approved a $411,055 request to cover the price of renting the unit for a few more months while officials research how to best fix the geothermal heating and cooling system that failed last year. Namely, officials will look at whether the system should be refurbished or replaced with a gas-burning system.
Greenwich Public Schools had sought $3.2 million to replace the geothermal system with a gas-burning HVAC system in the fall, but the RTM voted to postpone the request in December because members wanted more cost information about alternative fixes.
GREENWICH — Because of the generosity of area residents, a high school freshman has the money she needs to provide food and clothes for her siblings, a maintenance worker has gotten the money to get current with her car payments and a single father of two is caught up with his utility bills.
“The gifts that go to the folks that benefit from the Giving Fund is life changing, whether it’s taking a bill off their hands or easing the burden” of isolation and need, said Bill Brucker, chief advancement officer of Greenwich-based Family Centers. “It just goes to show you that people in lower Fairfield County are concerned about their neighbors and will take care of their own.”
Now finishing its 40th year, the Giving Fund, cosponsored by Hearst Connecticut Media, Family Centers and Darienbased Person to Person, tells the stories of local residents in need of a helping hand. The goal is to provide small monetary donations to families striving to cover the cost of necessities from rent and utilities to transportation costs and medical bills — or even winter clothes and food.
The first of the 136 cases featured in this year’s Giving Fund were published in November. While donations will be accepted until Jan. 31, this year’s total has fallen about 15 cases short of complete success, Brucker
said. The gap between requests and donations, he said, is due in part to the continuously growing need for help in the area. The program is also a victim of its own success,
Brucker said, as social workers and others who nominate cases for the Giving Fund provided the project with a few more cases this year than usu
Fund continues on A4