Camas-Washougal Community Chest launches 2024 fundraising campaign

“I was aware of their reputation and knew they like to support their community,” Cole said of the Community Chest, a nearly 80-year-old grant-funding organization focused on helping Camas-Washougal individuals and families in need. “Knowing that we have a high percentage of Camas-Washougal students at Cascadia Tech, it seemed like a good fit.”

In his application for a $3,075 Community Chest grant, Cole wrote that the money would help students purchase required uniforms, textbooks and supplies — a chef’s jacket for a culinary student, scrubs for students in the school’s applied medical science program or tools for construction or automotive students, for example — and could help some students’ families fund basic necessities such as food, a few nights’ lodging or a gas card to get to work.

“We’re living in unprecedented times and families are strained more than ever,” Cole said. “We have a SAFE — Students and Family Emergency — fund that has paid for families to get an apartment after their house flooded, or to get food or support students over the holidays.”

The Foundation also tries to help Cascadia Tech students pay for registration fees and travel costs associated with the SKILLS USA competition that tests students’ knowledge and can lead to state and national honors.

“We’re the most decorated high school in Washington for the SKILLS USA competition,” Cole noted. “And that can cost well over $1,000, depending on how far they go in the program.”

“Programs and projects funded in 2023 included support of the local food bank run by Inter-Faith Treasure House, funding for family support programs run by Children’s Home Society of Washington, funding a portion of Family Promise’s Cares prevention program to help low-income families avoid losing their home, funding habitat improvements in the Gibbons Creek watershed conducted by the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership and funding for food and food service supplies for the local Meals on Wheels People program,” Community Chest leaders stated in the news release.

The 30 grants awarded by the Community Chest in 2023 also included seven new recipients:

• Cascadia Technical Academy Foundation, which asked for $3,075 to help Camas-Washougal students at Cascadia Tech.

• Camas Robotics Booster Club, which requested $5,000 to help “inspire young people to be science and technology leaders by engaging them in exciting, mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills … that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication and leadership.

• Camas-Washougal Parent Co-op Preschool, a nonprofit preschool that, according to its application to the Community Chest, ”provides a positive introductory learning experience for preschoolers that will help prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.”

• East County Citizens Alliance, a nonprofit group founded in January 2022, with around 90 volunteers from Camas and Washougal that, according to its grant application, strives to support the East Clark County community and public institutions “through relationship-building, education, advocacy and volunteer initiatives that grow positive relationships and build a vibrant, healthy East County.”

• Komak, a nonprofit that provides emergency assistance to people who are unable to work during cancer treatments. In its request for $!0,000 from the Community Chest, the group said that “lacking our emergency support, clients and their families often face the threat of eviction, utility cutoffs, nutritional insufficiency and property repossessions during a time when the focus should be on recovering health and self-sufficiency.”

• Lacamas Watershed Council, a nonprofit founded in 2019 by Camas citizens concerned about toxic algal blooms in Lacamas, Round and Fallen Leaf lakes. The group, according to their grant application, “advocates for improved water quality based on the best available science.”

• YWCA Clark County, which, according to its grant application, “is a multi-service organization dedicated to supporting and empowering local adults, children and families … (that) serves over 12,000 individuals annually, including survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault; youth aging out of foster care; and preschool children at risk of or experiencing homelessness.”

Other programs funded by the Community Chest in 2023 included: the Camas Farmers Market, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Impact Camas-Washougal at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Lifeline Connections, the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, Meals on Wheels People, the Pink Lemonade Project, St. Anne’s Safe Stay Program, Unite! Washougal Community Coalition, the Washougal School District’s Principal’s Checkbook program — which helps Washougal principals fund basic needs for low-income or homeless students — and the West Columbia Gorge Humane Society animal shelter in Washougal.

Major donations for the 2023 Community Chest grants, according to the organization, came from Georgia-Pacific (GP) employees and the GP Foundation, HP employees, the HP Corporation, Camas and Washougal school district employees, city employees from Camas and Washougal as well as the Port of Camas-Washougal, Watercare Industrial Services, Columbia Rock Products, Waste Connections, Windermere Foundation, the Tidland Christian Development Fund and the Hinds Charitable Fund.

To learn more about the Community Chest or to make a charitable donation to the local grant-funding organization that will help more Camas-Washougal individuals and families in need in 2024, visit the group’s website at CamasWashougalCommuni tyChest.org.