MONTGOMERY COUNTY EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, INC.

PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2005

(PRESENTED ON FEBRUARY 21, 2006 BY THE PRESIDENT, PHILIP PAPPAS)

Once again, we gather to celebrate another year in the life of the Montgomery County Emergency Assistance Program. Throughout the past 31 years, we continue to be the stop gap agency which addresses immediate, emergency and temporary financial crisis in which citizens of our county sometimes find themselves. As always, we continue to promote our original philosophy of stressing personal responsibility and self-sufficiency, while maintaining the dignity necessary to become or continue as productive, contributing members of our society.

MCEAP continues to be a story about people and this community. The lives of those we serve, who on receiving assistance, find their situations altered for the better and their hope for a better life restored. It is about the lives of people like you, our dedicated volunteers, who continually give of yourselves so those less fortunate may lead a better life.

As we review the 2005 statistics, we find the number of cases served was 1,485 representing 4,158 individuals down slightly from last years numbers. Our total dollar expenditures was $116,717. The 31 year total for MCEAP expenditures is now $2,371,954 representing 47,486 cases or 136,356 individuals.

As the year progressed, we noted that our income for most months of the year was exceeding our expenses. This fortunate situation has allowed us to increase all types of assistance from $50.00 to $100.00 per assistance. In addition, we were able to increase our fuel assistance from 50 gallons to 100 gallons and extend our program dates by another month. The new dates are now from October 15 to March 15 in lieu of November 1 to March 1. As in the past, sizeable contributions continued to come in from area churches, St. Paul United Methodist Church's Christmas Wrap Project, Our Savior Lutheran Church's Potato Festival, and matching funds from Thrivent for Lutherans. Additional funding sources include the United Way of Montgomery, Floyd and Radford, the Trolinger Trust and FEMA. Our food bank was enhanced by Flex-Out, a program sponsored by Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity at Virginia Tech which raised $10,997.00 for MCEAP's food bank. An additional 4.5 tons of food was collected by the U.S. Post Office during it's annual food drive on the first weekend in May.

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors continue to fund MCEAP's one paid staff position along with additional funding to pay for office space we use at New River Community Action and to cover some indirect costs associated with the MCEAP position. We thank the Board and County Administrator for their continued support.

As in past years, we give special thanks to New River Community Action for providing space for our office, food pantry and backup staff.

The location of our clothing bank at 409 Roanoke Street in Christiansburg was made possible by our new landlord, Curtis Motors.

Mr. Curtis has painted the building and is genuinely supportive of MCEAP's role in the community. Due to our location and hard working volunteers, our clothing bank once again had an exceptional year. Clothing is free to our clients with vouchers, while others are sold at modest costs. Proceeds pay our rent and utilities with the remaining going to our general fund to provide more assistance to our clients.

The furniture bank remains at Stoway Co. where Diane Clarkson continues to assist both donors and recipients.

Once again, our heartfelt thanks go out to Melanie Collins, our Emergency Assistance Specialist, whose knowledge and dedication are the backbone of our organization and to our Board of Directors for their extra commitment to MCEAP, especially our Secretary - Angela Little and Treasurer - Margie Zelinski.

Thanks to Fred Hodges, we obtained a grant from the Virginia Neighborhood Assistance Program, but unfortunately we failed to take any advantages of the program. Hopefully this year, we will be able to reap some of the benefits that this program has to offer.

Again, thanks to all of you that have helped to make life a little easier for thousands of needy individuals. Father Scott would have been proud of each of you.

God bless you for your help and for caring to help others.