The Fuel Fund of Maryland: An Investment In Families' Futures

For 25 years, the Fuel Fund has been keeping families safe, warm, cool, and their homes well lit by helping them pay their energy bills. We assist seniors and people with disabilities existing on fixed incomes, families and individuals barely eking out a living earning the minimum wage, and people weathering hardships like job losses or medical emergencies.

The Need Has Never Been Greater

Gas prices have climbed 80 percent in four years. The cost of home heating oil has escalated by triple digits during that same time, and a 72 percent increase in electric prices is on the horizon in Central Maryland. While the cost of commodities are soaring, low-income wages remain static.

Fuel Fund families face tough choices every day. Like Mrs. Burch, an elderly woman who decided that her husband's medicine was more important than hers, so she stopped taking her medications. They couldn't afford the rent, food, utility bills, and medical expenses. Something had to go.

Or Mr. Connor who was involved in a serious on-the-job accident. Out of work for four months, the family of four quickly went through their savings trying to close the gap between worker's compensation and their monthly budget. Before long their savings were drained.

These are just two of the families who were helped by the Fuel Fund. Our clients are proud; they need a hand up, not a hand out.

Over Half the People We Help Are Children

The Fuel Fund of Maryland partners with advocates for the homeless, the hungry, the disenfranchised, because often our clients are a turnoff away from joining them. Over 50 percent of the people we help are children. Last year, nearly 10,000 children under the age of 19 were helped by Fuel Fund donors.

Donations help the Fuel Fund of Maryland keep people in their homes connected to life-sustaining energy. That energy takes many forms: natural gas, electricity, home heating oil, wood and propane—whatever it takes to keep people safe and secure in their homes in the icy winter and scorching summer.

Your Donation has a Powerful Impact

The Fuel Fund of Maryland helps avoid homelessness, because nonpayment of energy bills is the number two reason people lose their homes. We promote safe homes, because without access to energy, families often try makeshift means to heat and light their houses, which oftentimes proves fatal. And we help children stay in school. The greatest tragedy 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.

The Fuel Fund of Maryland thanks you for visiting its Web site. If you have any recommendations or comments, please send them to info@fuelfundmaryland.org.