WESTMINSTER — Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) announces a generous gift of $100,000 from the Friends of Bernie Sanders, made possible by sales of items bearing “the mittens meme,” which raised more than $1.8 million over the past two months.
SEVCA's Executive Director Steve Geller in a news release called the gift “an unprecedented opportunity to address a wide range of needs that have been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic.”
He said this unique unrestricted donation will help SEVCA both relieve the hardships caused by poverty and attack its causes in Windham and Windsor counties, particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19.
According to SEVCA, 1 in 12 Vermonters were food insecure before the pandemic began last March, but the pandemic spiked that number to a level not seen since the Great Recession of 2008, with 1 in 3 Vermonters experiencing a lack of adequate access to food.
The pandemic caused similarly deep impacts in many other areas of basic need, such as medical and mental health care, employment, housing, energy, and general financial security.
SEVCA and four other Vermont community action agencies will each receive $100,000 in “Mittens Money,” reflecting the Vermont senator's longstanding passion for and commitment to addressing needs related to poverty, the elderly, youth, and health care.
More than 1,000 community action agencies nationwide share the mission of easing the effects of poverty and eliminating its causes.
“The importance of unrestricted funding like the Mittens Fund to fulfilling that mission cannot be overestimated,” said Carolyn Sweet, SEVCA's director of planning and development.
Sweet said that SEVCA receives millions of dollars in grants every year, “but most of them are tightly restricted as to their purpose and what they can or can't be spent on. This gift enables SEVCA to use it in the way it will do the most good.”
SEVCA is currently engaged in a process to determine the most effective uses for this donation in the context of other funding it has received or that might be available.
According to Geller, their intention is to “optimize its use to best complement all other potential funding so that it does the most good for the most people for the longest possible time. This extraordinary resource deserves no less.”
For information about all of SEVCA's programs and services, visit sevca.org or call 800-464-9951.