Camas-Washougal Community Chest kicks off 2025 fundraising efforts

The Camas-Washougal Community Chest is making its annual plea to the community to help fund its 2025 grants to nonprofits that serve the local community.

The annual fundraising drive began in October and hopes to raise $126,000 for the 2025 grants, which will benefit nonprofits that, according to the Community Chest, “serve Camas-Washougal residents in need, at-risk youth programs, address natural resource conservation, foster education and enhance diversity, equity and inclusivity.”

The Community Chest and its partners, the Camas-Washougal Rotary Foundation and the Camas Lions Foundation, raised $134,000 in 2024, to support 34 grants and serve more than 19,500 individual services.

“Giving to the Camas-Washougal Community Chest is an easy and efficient way to help people in need in our hometown,” said Dave Pinkernell, president of the Community Chest’s board of directors.

In 2024, for instance, the Community Chest’s grants funded a wide variety of projects benefiting community members in need and youth across Camas-Washougal, including:

• The Friends of the Columbia Gorge, which used its grant to fund classroom and outdoor environmental education for Washougal sixth-graders;

• The General Federation of Women’s Clubs, which purchased books and other materials for Camas-Washougal pre-kindergarten and elementary classrooms;

• Akin East County Family Resource Center in Washougal, which used the money for parent education, youth support programs, emergency assistance and behavioral health services;

• The Inter-Faith Treasure House, which utilized Community Chest grant money to fund its “Backpack Program” for Camas children and their families who are in need of extra food during school breaks and on the weekends, and to purchase fuel for its delivery vans;

• The Camas Farmer’s Market for its Produce Pals program, which educates children about where and how food is produced and offers them tokens to purchase a fruit or vegetable at the market;

• ReFuel Washougal, which uses the grant money to provide food and other services to unhoused community members and other Camas-Washougal residents in need;

• Silver Star Search and Rescue, which purchased a titanium frame, fork and wheel for the litter carrier it uses during rescue missions in rural Clark and Skamania counties;

• Camas School District for its “Principal’s Checkbook” program that assists Camas students and families in need; REACH Community Development, which used the grant to purchase groceries, holiday food, baby supplies and school supplies for at-risk Washougal families and individuals;

• The Lacamas Watershed Council, which used the money to fund volunteer training and water-quality monitoring equipment and testing supplies used to monitor water quality in Camas’ Lacamas Lake;

• JD Currie Youth Camp, which used the grant money to repair an outhouse at the Camas-area camp;

• Family Promise of Clark County, a group that helps low-income families avoid losing their homes and helps others find new housing;

• Fort Vancouver Regional Library Foundation’s Washougal library for its summer reading program;

• The Friends and Foundation of Camas Library, which used the money to borrow outdoor and nature-based activities for the library’s Nature Smart Library offerings;

• St. Anne’s Church in Washougal, which used the grant money to provide local goods and services for unhoused people living in their vehicles as part of St. Anne’s “Safe Stay” program;

• Unite! Washougal Community Coalition for its suicide prevention program, parenting classes and “healthy choices” campaigns;

• Impact Camas-Washougal at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, which purchased grocery gift cards for needy families in the Camas and Washougal school districts;

• Kiwanis Camp Wa-Ri-Ki for its environmental education program that teaches outdoor- and nature-based skills;

• Watershed Alliance of Southwest Washington to fund three litter cleanups at Cottonwood Beach and Trail in Washougal; and

• The West Columbia Gorge Humane Society, which used the grant money to fund its veterinary assistance, pet food and other programs benefiting Camas-Washougal residents — and their pets — in need.

The Community Chest’s 2024 donation drive was able to raise enough money to give the group’s top three grant recipients — Akin, the Treasure House and Impact Camas-Washougal — a total of $30,000. Since 1946, the Community Chest has given nearly $500,000 to these three groups alone — including $214,416 to Akin (a merger of two of Washington’s children and family support organizations, Childhaven and Children’s Home Society of Washington); $249,077 to the local Inter-Faith Treasure House and $17,500 to Impact Camas-Washougal.

Over the past five years, Community Chest has granted 42 local nonprofit groups a total of $647,311 for programs benefitting Camas-Washougal individuals and families.

Employees who participate in their workplace payroll deduction program make up one of the Community Chest’s largest donor groups, including employees from the Georgia-Pacific paper mill, HP, the cities of Camas and Washougal, the Port of Camas-Washougal and the Camas and Washougal school districts. Other major Community Chest donors in 2024 included the Georgia-Pacific Foundation, HP Corporation, Watercare Industrial Services, Columbia Rock Products, Windermere Foundation, Tidland Christian Development Fund and Hinds Charitable Fund.