We prevent homelessness.
Nonpayment of energy bills is the No. 2 reason people lose their homes, right behind failure to pay the rent. The Fuel Fund keeps people secure in their homes with their families—and their communities—intact. In essence, our donors prevent much larger social problems by solving individual families' energy issues.
We promote safe homes.
Without energy, families use makeshift means to heat and light their homes, which can prove fatal. Carbon-monoxide poisoning and candle fires are too often the result. Helping pay unaffordable energy bills is the simplest way to keep families, and their neighborhoods, safe. It is an investment in the health and welfare of today's—and tomorrow's—families.
We help children stay in school.
One of the greatest tragedies of evictions caused by utility turnoffs is that children not only lose their homes, they also lose their schools, teachers, friends and neighborhood support systems. Fuel Fund donors help families stay stable, able to meet the needs of their children, by staying together as a family in their own home with their energy needs met.
We help seniors and people with disabilities faced with having to choose between heat, food and medicine.
Among the most heartbreaking situations the Fuel Fund sees on a day-in, day-out basis is the plight of seniors and individuals with disabilities. Combine static incomes with double-digit inflation for medications, along with rising food prices, and the net effect is an ever-widening affordability gap for vulnerable Marylanders. Fuel Fund donors help by ensuring that these individuals' homes are warm, giving them one less problem to worry about.
