Business help sought by ECHO

Friday, Feb. 20, 2009

The charity is accustomed to raising one-third of its funds for the year during the holiday season, but garnered "basically nothing" in the waning days of 2008, according to Tom Marnane, who is secretary of the board of directors and is also in charge of fundraising.

Marnane blames the recession for the dearth of funds, but also sees the situation as an opportunity for "economically stable" members of the community to step up and increase their involvement with Calvert's neediest residents. In that vein, he is launching "Calvert 500 Against Homelessness," seeking to recruit 500 of the county's more successful residents to support the shelter with hundreds of dollars each in annual donations, as well as by volunteering.

Entrepreneurs are ideal philanthropists, Marnane said.

"They're used to applying themselves to problems, and homelessness is a problem," he said. "We have a shelter for them, but that's just a starting point. We hope to reintegrate them back into society and make them productive. … We have a wide-open door, and joining the organization can be good for the business because you're working with people that are likeminded, that look beyond themselves in trying to do some good."

Marnane, himself president of Targeted Solutions LLC, a sales and project management firm in Huntingtown, has used his business and personal connections to give Project ECHO residents a second chance in life, including finding them odd jobs, hiring them to help with presentations and providing cell phones to stay in touch with potential employers. Even sporadic employment gives people the work history they need to become self-sufficient, he said.

"Once somebody does something you give them a chance to prove themselves, to have a reference," he said. "… I gelled the idea [of the Calvert 500] about eight or nine months ago. I'm really looking for employer-type people, and also people with money who can use people to do odd jobs and stuff like that. We have a big interest in the business community, and people who live here have an interest in doing this right, because we don't want to have [a situation] where we have people who can't find services causing trouble because they have nothing to do."

Perhaps his greatest success has been Garrett West, who found himself in a shelter at age 19, weeks after graduating from Calvert High School, because a landlord had sold his family's house. Marnane found a job for West, now 21, with Steamgard, an Illinois-based company.

West, who lives in Lusby, started out at the bottom rung of the ladder but learned to be a pipefitter, a job he loves. He enjoys "everything" about his job, he said. "I like the travel. There's a lot of traveling, and while I'm on the job I get to stay at hotels. It's really nice."

"I just wanted to say that Project ECHO really, really helped me out," West said. "I think it's a great organization and I'd like to see it stay around for a while. I know they do great work with the homeless — helping them turn their lives around. And Tom, with Targeted Solutions, has been a great help to me. He really took me under wing and helped me turn my life around. He seems to go the extra mile — a lot of the things he's done for me he really didn't have to."

Bill Stanton, president of the shelter's board of directors, confirmed that finances have taken a hit recently, although donations are still coming in and the main fundraiser, the "empty bowl fundraiser," is next month.

"We're not going to go belly-up any time soon, but it's a little frightening in terms of income vs. expenses," Stanton said. "Obviously because of the economy and downturn and everything is more expensive — it affects shelters as much as anything else. Our heating bill has gone up, more than doubled; everything's gone up. We seem to have fewer volunteers; [I'm] not really sure why that is. Fewer volunteers mean payroll increases."

Also looming is a move into a newer, larger building, which means a higher capacity but also higher expenses, the shelter officials said. But Stanton is confident Project ECHO will continue to serve its purpose.

"The best we can do at Project ECHO is give people a place to sleep, something to eat, a little bit of hope and some opportunity. If we do that then we've done our job, but you can't always guarantee that."

emitrano@somdnews.com