Two sides of the same fund
Giving and receiving, on one page.
We put these together on purpose. In a county this size the same households sit on both sides of it across a lifetime, and separating them into two pages would suggest otherwise.
Giving
Donate
Every gift to this fund becomes a delivery with a neighbor’s name on the invoice. We hold no endowment and we spend what comes in, because a tank that is empty in February cannot wait for an investment cycle.
How to donate
By check, which costs us the least
Make it out to The Contoocook Carry Community Fund and mail it to P.O. Box 214, Contoocook, NH 03229. There is no processing fee on a check, so every dollar reaches a fuel dealer.
Online
Email give@contoocookcarry.org and a volunteer will send you a secure giving link the same day. We keep the link off the website on purpose, so that nobody can put up a convincing copy of this page.
Over the phone
Call (603) 746-2210 if you would rather arrange it by talking to somebody. This is also how most memorial gifts are set up.
Through your employer
A good number of Concord and Manchester employers match charitable giving, and several of our largest gifts have quietly been two gifts. Ask your human resources office and send us the form.
In memory or in honour of someone
Tell us the name and where to write, and we will send a card saying a gift was made in their memory. We never mention the amount.
Unused fuel dealer credit
If you are moving, or switching to a heat pump, and are leaving a credit balance behind with a local dealer, that balance can usually be signed over to the fund. Two winters ago this paid for eleven deliveries.
What your gift pays for
- A delivery of heating oil, propane or kerosene, arranged directly with your dealer
- Cordwood by the cord and wood pellets by the ton, bought early enough to matter
- The service call when a burner, nozzle or thermocouple fails and the fuel is not the problem
- The restart charge after a tank has been run all the way dry
- Nothing else. There are no salaries, no office and no mailing beyond one letter a year
About nine dollars in every ten reaches a fuel dealer. The rest covers the post office box, the bank’s fees and the one letter we print each year.
Become a monthly donor
We call our monthly donors the Woodpile, because a woodpile is built in the summer for a problem that arrives in the winter. Fuel emergencies do not follow the fundraising calendar. August donations pay for August furnace failures, and almost nobody thinks to give in August.
- $10a month
- Adds up to a partial fill across a year, and more importantly it is money that is already there in July.
- $25a month
- The most common level. Twelve of these fund a full winter delivery for one household.
- $50a month
- Covers a delivery and a service call over the course of a year, which is the pair we see most often.
Setting it up
Email give@contoocookcarry.org with the amount and the day of the month you would like it taken, and a volunteer will send you a link. If you would rather cut us out of the payment chain entirely, set up a recurring payment through your own bank’s bill pay to our post office box. That version costs the fund nothing at all, and it is the one we quietly prefer.
You can change or stop a monthly gift by replying to any receipt, or by calling (603) 746-2210. Nobody will ask you why.
Receiving
Request assistance
Asking is the hardest part and we know it. Almost everyone who calls apologises at some point in the conversation, and none of them needed to. Here is exactly what happens, so that nothing about it is a surprise.
Who we can help
You live in Merrimack County and it is your main home
Renters and homeowners both. If you rent and heat is included in your rent, call anyway, because we can sometimes work with a landlord where the tank is shared.
You heat with oil, propane, kerosene, cordwood or pellets
If your heat is electric or the problem is a utility shutoff notice, we are the wrong fund, but call and we will tell you in one conversation which programme is the right one.
The tank is low or empty, or the heating equipment has failed
You do not have to wait until you are out. Running a tank fully dry usually means a restart and sometimes a service call, so calling at a quarter tank costs everyone less than calling at zero.
Paying for it this month is not possible
There is no means test, no income form and no proof of hardship. We ask a few questions to understand the situation, not to score you against a threshold.
Usually once per heating season, but ask again if things change
Most households we help need one delivery. Some need two. We would far rather tell you no this time than have you decide in advance not to ask.
You can be waiting on state assistance and still call us
The state Fuel Assistance Program run through Community Action takes time to process. We regularly cover the gap while an application is pending, and we will help you file one if you have not.
What to have with you when you call
None of this is required. If you have none of it we will still take the call and work it out together.
- Your name, your address and a phone number where we can reach you today
- What you heat with, and roughly how much is left, from the gauge or a stick in the tank
- Your fuel company's name and your account number with them, if you can find it
- How many people live in the house, including children and anyone over sixty-five
- Whether you have applied for state Fuel Assistance, and where that application stands
- If the trouble is a broken furnace rather than empty fuel, who last serviced it
How the process works
You call or email
Call (603) 746-2210 or write to help@contoocookcarry.org. Evenings, weekends and holidays are all fine. Nobody is on a clock here.
A short, confidential conversation
Ten minutes, usually the same day and never more than one business day later. A volunteer asks about the tank, the household and what is going on. It is a conversation, not an interview.
We call your fuel dealer, not you
We confirm your account and authorise a delivery in your name, and we settle the invoice with them directly. No money passes through your hands, and there is nothing to pay back.
Fuel arrives
Usually within one to three business days, and faster when the house is already cold. If it is an equipment failure rather than an empty tank, we authorise the service call the same way.
We check back
A week or two later somebody calls to see whether it held, and to help with the state application if you would like a hand. That call is the last thing we ask of you.
Start the conversation
If your household is cold right now, please call rather than write. A phone call gets a delivery moving the same afternoon.
(603) 746-2210Or write to help@contoocookcarry.org and a volunteer will answer within a day.
This is neighbors helping neighbors.
There is no agency behind this fund, no caseworker assigned to you and no file that follows you anywhere. The money comes from people in Hopkinton, Warner and Boscawen, and it goes to people in the same towns, often on the same roads.
Whoever picks up the phone lives about fifteen minutes from you and has stood in a cold kitchen too. You will not be asked to prove that you deserve to be warm, because that is not a question any of us think is worth asking.