About the Fuel Fund of Maryland

Mission/History/People We Help

• Mission:

  
  The Fuel Fund of Maryland provides resources to vulnerable Maryland families for heat and home utility needs. Our donors, board and staff support and advocate collaborative funding and services that ensure affordable energy to families that must overcome hardship caused by poverty and assist these families to meet their human needs.
   

• History:

  
  The Fuel Fund was incorporated in 1981 as the Fuel Fund of Central Maryland, following the nation's first energy crisis during the late 1970s when an oil embargo squeezed supply, and energy prices soared. Hardest hit were those people least able to pay dramatic cost increases. Victorine Q. Adams, a Baltimore City councilwoman and noted civil rights activist, intervened and the earliest version of the Fuel Fund was born. Today an integrated network of fuel funds across the nation carries on Mrs. Adam's vision. With the onset of the deregulation of the electric utility industry, the Fuel Fund changed its name to Fuel Fund of Maryland, Inc. At every stage of the life of the Fuel Fund, its focus has been solely on the essential energy needs of individuals and families for whom energy is unaffordable. Families who receive help always pay as much of their bills as they are able. The portion that is unaffordable is usually divided among the customer, the Fuel Fund donations and bill credits allowed by the utility. In this way, the Fuel Fund supplements the resources of each family. Likewise, in order to use all of the resources that are available for families, the Fuel Fund refers applicants to the government-funded programs that operate out of the state Office of Home Energy Programs. Often a family receives adequate assistance from these programs. If they are still in need, the Fuel Fund helps.
   

• People We Help:

  
  The Fuel Fund serves vulnerable Marylanders in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Montgomery counties. In 2007 we helped nearly 18,000 individuals. The target population is families and individuals in Central Maryland who live at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. A representative Fuel Fund family has an income under $13,000 for a family of three or is a senior or individual with a disability living on a fixed income. A two-income family, each earning minimum wage of $6.15 per hour, has gross annual pay of $25,584.