Year in Review: Community Assistance Program

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The Community Assistance Program (CAP) started the year with several programs shutdown due to Covid-19. Fortunately, we were able to operate our food connection program with some restrictions and our crisis assistance program remotely. In May, we received a favorable ruling from the city to occupy our new location. The CAP Center, located at 508 G Street, provided us with enough space to meet protocols for crisis assistance and allowed us to restart the clothing bank in August.

We spent much of the year anticipating a large number of requests for help after the lifting of the utilities shutoff moratorium. We were very grateful for the community’s generosity to help people with this need. With additional help from the city and other county agencies, the needs of our neighbors in this area have been met so far.

Our fall programs were very successful once again, due to many volunteers and a generous community. We were able to run our winter coat program out of the CAP Center, but had to find new locations for our Thanksgiving baskets and Community Toy Store, as the location we used the past two years was no longer available. Eight people completed the fall Financial Literacy class that we offered in partnership with The Whatcom Dream, and we plan to schedule another class early in 2022.

This fall also brought the rollout of our new Chaplain Ministry. It is designed to expand CAP’s services to include emotional/spiritual care, as well as longer-term practical support and follow up. This offers a more relational approach to serving clients and supporting volunteers. 

Each year our goal is to bless our community by enabling our neighbors to love and care for one another. During 2021, we had about 3,000 occasions to do this through all of our programs.

Laura Vogee, CAP board member

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