Responding to increasing requests for emergency assistance during the winter cold, the National Grid Foundation has awarded Catholic Charities two grants to help those in need.
Two National Grid Foundation grants totaling over half a million dollars will go to help warm households served by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany, which spans 14 counties. Sister Betsy Van Deusen is Diocese’s CEO.
"Inflation is driving up the cost of food and oil and gas, and our neighbors and some of us in this room are struggling to keep our homes warm and our lights on," said Van Deusen. "60% of the households we served were in our rural communities, the other 40 in suburban and rural, suburban and urban, proving that financial assistance and financial hardship has no boundaries. This $550,000 grant will provide a vital lifeline for those facing desperate circumstances."
Announcing the funding Wednesday, Van Deusen says "difficult times don't discriminate," and points out that demand for emergency energy assistance is rising. She says support from the National Grid Foundation over the past 17 years has enabled Catholic Charities to increase the number of families and individuals it helps.
"The need is growing at an alarming rate," Van Deusen said. "Since 2021 we've nearly doubled the number of households we've helped. Not only are we serving more households, but we are also providing larger monetary help for those rising emergency energy costs."
Van Deusen notes that Catholic Charities served 621 households in 2023. In 2024 that number increased by 33%. Rising fuel and electricity costs pushed the average assistance grant per household from $463 in 2021 to $548 in 2024.
Don and Bev Pierce, an older Delaware County couple, were recently left without heat when their oil tank sprang a leak. Shirley Pierce is their adult daughter.
"Myself and my brother, and we were trying to, we got families, and we've got things going on, and we were trying to figure out a way that we could, you know, help them. And I have a friend of mine, a friend of our family, Tracey Martindale, who works at Catholic Charities in Oneonta, and I reached out to her and she got right back with me and had us fill out some paperwork and submitted that," Pierce said.
Martindale helped the Pierces secure a new heating system for the home they've lived in the past 68 years.
National Grid Foundation Executive Director Robert Simmons says the door is open if additional help is needed.
"This won't be our last collaboration between the National Grid Foundation and the Albany community. I'm here to say that we're building on a legacy of those that came before me, but we're also standing on the shoulders of those in the Catholic tradition who have fought for justice and against poverty and fought for anti-poverty movements as a part of the culture of the Catholic Church. Catholic priests standing outside in my neighborhood, passing out food. Jesuits passing out Bibles. Jesuits, passing out clothes. This is the core principle of Catholicism. We stand in solidarity with all those of faith, all those who are outside of the faith community, to work together to improve Albany for the betterment of all people," Simmons said.
