CARTHAGE, Mo. — An area shelter needs your help for a unique fundraising project.

The Carthage Crisis Center is giving you the chance to get more bang for your donation buck. Members of the Carthage Crisis Center Board of Directors have kicked off a major fundraising campaign. Executive Director Jim Benton says board members have dug deep in their own pockets to get the ball rolling.

Jim Benton, Executive Director, Carthage Crisis Center, said, “Recently we had a $20,000 matching grant challenge provided by our board of directors, so that everything that is given here in the next six weeks or so is going to be matched dollar for dollar so we could get as much as $40,000 through this effort.”

So just how generous are residents and some businesses in the Carthage area?

Brooke Ramirez-Pua, Crisis Center Resident, said, “Well last year, this Center served about 48,000 meals last year, and they only had to spend $500 doing so.”

Benton says area grocery stores and individuals donate food on an almost daily basis. The Carthage Crisis Center also received food donations from major airlines when the pandemic all but shut down that industry.

“Our Mission Statement is to help people who are homeless and needy to return to self sufficiency with God’s help and the support of the community, and that last part is something that we added recently because that’s really where it all happens, it’s the community,” said Benton.

It’s that same community that’s helping Brooke Ramirez Pua and her family get back on their feet. Since coming to the facility her husband has found work again and they hope to be back out on their own soon.

If is wasn’t for this place, where would you have ended up?

“We would probably be in the streets still, maybe in a car, I probably wouldn’t have my kids and me and my husband might not still be together, and it’s changed us, we was out of hope and everything,” said Ramirez-Pua.

The fundraising drive runs from now through the end of April.