Pay it Forward Stories 2022

I donated my PIF to Denver Children's Hospital, I also personally donate to this organization every year as well.

The MT BIPOC Mutual Aid program provides grants to black, indigenous, and people of color in Montana who need housing assistance. I've been supporting this fund for a couple years and think they do a lot of good for the small size of the operation.

I was fortunate enough to receive a gift card to help a family when they needed it the most. I know of a few people that this gift card could have great impact on, so I wanted to try to select the one that could use it most and have great appreciation for the lift me up.

I chose to gift the card to a family that was being evicted from the home that they had lived in for quite some time. This was not due to anything that they had done wrong, but due to their home being sold by their landlord. Given only a short time to find a new place to call home, pack their belongings and start over would be a blow to any of us. This along with raising and providing for their young family was wearing hard on them.

I have chosen this family to receive the gift card, hoping that they could use the funds to purchase food, or personal items for the family and save money to be applied to any deposits or unexpected expenses that may come up in the moving process.

I would like to thank the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation for allowing their employees to assist members of our community through the Pay It Forward Foundation.

Sincerely
Todd Vingom

Donated to Greater Impact in Bozeman Montana,

     Greater Impact was born with a heart to serve others. We were helping people with car troubles and housing problems, then with the help of our community partners realized that we could be impacting more people. Causing the 501(c)3 nonprofit to be born.
     We are passionate about giving people a hand up in their time of need. We are a non-profit designed to serve the community and, specifically, help families stay in their homes, cars, and jobs. Our three serving teams are committed to rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty by meeting needs in people's lives in personal and tangible ways.
     One of our teams is the auto repairs team, they are committed to helping families keep their cars safe, reliable, and legal so they can continue getting to work and earn money to pay their mortgage or rent and therefore stay in their homes.
     Another one of our teams is our housing team. They assist families living in housing with many problems. We have repaired holes in roofs and floors, gotten bathrooms to work, contracted electricians to safely rewire houses, and much more. We are looking to expand our housing team by developing a community for working homeless families in the form of cottages and tiny homes. This affordable, sustainable, housing will allow the families the chance to purchase an asset with a zero credit, zero interest loan. The hope is that they would then purchase a small piece of land and move their cottage to it or sell their cottage to another family and use the equity to purchase another home.
     The third team we have is our coaching team. This is made up of financial coaches and recovery coaches. Our  financial coaches help budget and plan to get out of debt and strategize for the future. Recovery coaches are there for those struggling with relationships and life choices.We like to link up with businesses and individuals in the community to make a Greater Impact. We want to give people, in the community we love, the hope of having a brighter future.

I donated my card to Molly. Molly is a single mom of two teenage boys. In November 2020, Molly found out she had an aggressive form of cancer.
For the next 12 months Molly’s plan of beating cancer consisted of a double mastectomy and chemo treatments. She learned in December of 2021 her cancer was back. More treatments and trips to Texas in February of 2022 she learned nothing is working and the doctors want to try something else.
My gift card was given to Molly to use as she wished, but with my request that she do something fun with her boys.
As time is so precious, it’s important to spend as much time as we can with the people we love.

As being a winner of the Pay It Forward gift card I decided to gift this prepaid card to a family in the valleyford community who is facing hard times. The Keatts Family, who resides on a farmstead in valleyford is faced with large medical bills as the mother has undergone major brain surgery to relieve pressure build up in the brain due to a small non-cancerous tumor. The family has 2 beautiful children under the age of 6 and several farm animals including pigs, ducks, turkey's, chickens, and many more. This gift card has allowed them to catch up on medical bills and meal prep dinner casserols ahead as the mom has healing restrictions from surgery that was preformed on 3/13/22. This gift card has also allowed the family to do basic car maintence on the family car so any follow up appointments the mom may have post surgery the car is safe and reliable to take into town. The Keatts family is so appriciative and thankful of the gift card. Thank you

As a family, my kids & I decided to use the Pay If Forward card for a few small random acts of kindness around our community whenever we felt compelled to: paid for groceries for random people in Walmart; paid for a few coffee orders behind us in the drive-thru at Starbucks; sent a round of coffee to my kids' childcare providers from Java Junction; paid for medication for a lady for her diabetic cat at the vet; bought items to prepare & provide Easter baskets to a family that we knew were unable to this year. It was a lot of fun & heartwarming for not only myself but my kids to get into the spirt of giving as well!

Mr. and Mrs. Washington, thank you for the gift of Pay it Forward! The card I received this year was used to help the Huntley Eagles 4-H Club purchase items to help with a fundraising raffle. The money the kids earn through this raffle will go to help with expenses and purchase supplies for the programs that the 4-H Club offers to the kids. 4-H has been a great organization to help teach kids work ethic, public speaking, and allow them to learn about and explore different areas of interest, both as hobbies and as business opportunities.

Thanks for what you do for our communities!

I thought for quite awhile before I decided to give my card to the Ziegler family. The Ziegler family has been through some tough times the past couple of years. Justin's daughter, that has down syndrome, was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half ago. She had to have her kidney removed and Justin says she is doing good now. The Ziegler family had a tremendous amount of travel to children's hospitals and I felt like they probably needed the financial help with bills or whatever expenses they had accrued.

Justin and his family are wonderful people and deserve this help more than anyone I can think of.

This year again I presented the giving card to the Ronald McDonald House of Dallas,Tx. They welcomed us with open arms when my son was hospitalized at the Dallas Childrens Medical Center back in November of 2020 thru July 2021. If not for them we would have had to pay to stay at a hotel which would have been costly. We have had to go back every six months to have check up for my son and they always have a room for us. The staff and facility are a godsend. If i receive future giving cards i will being choosing The RMHD.

I chose to give my card to the Wounded Warrior Project. As a veteran myself, we need to support those who have gave so much:

"More than 52,000 servicemen and women physically injured in recent military conflicts. 500,000 living with invisible wounds, from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder. 320,000 experiencing debilitating brain trauma."

I chose a family who were struggling financially due to the covid-19 pandemic, they had lost a substantial amount of their income. We donated the card in its entirety so they could purchase food and gas. They were overwhelmed by your generosity. Thank you!

My card was donated to the Whitehall, MT youth baseball association. They used it for baseball gear and training equipment.

I donated the card to my local Marine Corps League Chapter, Detachment 1132 North Augusta, SC. This non-profit organizations does so much for the veterans and their families in the community, but that ability is based on the donations they receive from the community. This donation to assist the Spinal Cord Unit at the VA Medical Center in Augusta, GA, purchase gift cards to hand out when needed, and games for the Children's Hospital.

Similar to past years I have chosen once again to spread the money around to the community. I reside in the very small town of Bridger MT. Population 850 on a busy day. There are several organizations that have benefited with the assistance, with most of them starting programs based on their first donations a couple years ago. $200 was given to the Bridger Senior Center. Every year at christmas the senior center has a christmas shop for the youth in the community to purchase items as gifts for their loved ones. Prices range from .25 to $5 and all the items are donated. The seniors in turn help the kids wrap the presents, bake cookies, and supply coffee and hot coco. This event is a wonderful opportunity for a community that is largely in poverty. The money goes towards buying additional items to help fill the tables of items to buy, wrapping paper, and supplies. For the second year in a row, $150 was provided to the Bridger Library. The library holds a summer program for the youth in the community, focusing on different subjects every year. Last summer the subject was on insects. Helping institute a program that provides a key chain at the end of the year too every child that makes every weeks class. The key chain then allows them the rest of year to pick out a candy bar with every book that they check out. The money helps pay for the key chains and candy bars through the year. Lastly the remaining $150 is put towards buying food supplies towards holiday boxes at christmas. Including 12 leftover unclaimed turkeys from MRL christmas employee giving. My two oldest daughters help shop for the remaining food to fill the holiday boxes to provide a complete meal. Boxes are then distributed to various churches, police department, and food bank to hand out to those they feel are the most needing or deserving. This pay it forward program has become a wonderful gift to the community and a very rewarding experience to my entire family. So much so, that on years that we haven't received the donation from the Foundation, we still provide the same amounts to each community organizations on our own accord. On behalf of the Town of Bridger, Thank You so much for continuing to provide this exceptional opportunity of improvements and programs.

I donated the Pay It Forward Card to the Missoula Humane Society. Thank you!

One of our employees recently was deployed overseas. He had mentioned that they did not have the tools needed to make there task easier or the tools they had were of poor quality. I asked what they needed and to text a list of tools needed.I then purchased the tools and shipped them out. Soon after I received the Pay it Forward , I Though this would be a great way to show our support of a fellow coworker , someone who is part of our family here at Montana Resources , and to give support to our military serving our country.I fell Honored to have been able to use the Pay it Forward in this manner and I want to thank Washington Corp. for making this possible,This is a great program and I hope it continues far into the future.
Thank You and everyone involved in this program
Rich Harned

I decided to donate to Community Doula Alliance. Diverse Doula Project is a community based doula program dedicated to creating spaces for diverse doulas, especially Black, Indigenous, Latino/a/x, Asian and other racially and linguistically diverse, underrepresented doulas, to reclaim, celebrate, and receive mentorship and emotional support to practice their cultural and traditional birth and postpartum models of care. Based on client requests and preferences, DDP matches expectant parents with culturally appropriate doulas to help families successfully navigate and mitigate social determinants of health such as racism, stress, poverty, education, employment, housing, and access to other culturally specific services.
I felt this was a good cause due to the fact that African American mothers are three times more likely to die and twice as likely to lose the baby. These odds change to the same as all others with the help of a doula. I am glad and thankful to have this opportunity to help make a difference.

This year's donation went to the Missoula Chapter of the Future Farmer's of America (FFA):

FFA makes a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth, and career success, through Agricultural Education. The students and faculty advisors self-manage a 100-acre farm in Missoula, which was established over 80 years ago. The Missoula FFA is one of the largest and most successful chapters in the state.

About 3 years ago, the Missoula FFA was granted the opportunity to build a meat processing facility that will further our students growth and knowledge utilizing "Farm to Market" techniques. This is the first ever of it's kind in the United States. This educational endeavor has been so successful they are expanding their state of the art meat processing and engineering lab, and the Pay It Forward donation is going towards that.

“Producing a workforce that's going to be valuable for our community. But then we're also producing a product. You know we produce about 30,000 pounds a year from this farm, you know that that goes a lot to feed in our community in addition to that we're producing beef for the school lunch program so we're producing a nice lean healthy local grown product that our students are able to eat, right here in the school lunch.” - Ag Education teacher Tom Andres

The "Schoolhouse Meats" project also donates meats processed at their facility to local food banks.

My family donated the 2022 Pay It Forward gift card to the Ronald McDonald house of Western Montana in Missoula. The Ronald McDonald house is a fantastic organization that supports families whose children are going through medical treatment and emergencies. We have a special place in our heart for the organization. 14 years ago our oldest son, who was 10 at the time, was diagnosed with cancer at Community Hospital in Missoula. The doctors instructed us to travel to Seattle Children's Hospital the next day. We arrived in Seattle with only a hotel reservation and no real plan for long-term living arrangements. The hospital directed us to the Ronald McDonald house who welcomed us for the next four months as our son received treatment. Their organization offers help to families in need and we will always be grateful for the hospitality and assistance in our time of need.

Using our giving card, we were able to buy and provide groceries, such as food and necessary toiletries, for three in-need families. These three families also had several young kids who we were able to provide for. These families were beyond thankful to receive this help that was provided by Pay It Forward. We feel extremely blessed and thankful that we were able to help and give back to members of our community.

I want to start by thanking the Washington Companies for such a great effort to help others, Shriners Hospitals helps providing help to much needed children that have little or no way to pay for their hospital bill.
I also donated to St Jude hospital, is very important to me because no family should have to worry about money when the only thing they need to worry about is taking care of their children, I happen to know people who are bless with the help of these organizations.

Thanks for the support.

The 2022 pay it forward I received I elected to give to a needy family. As my wife is an elementary school teacher, she comes into contact with numerous families that have needs.

She indicated one particular single mom that is struggling financially. Her husband left her with two kids under 10, she works as a house cleaner so that she can be home when her kids are. If one is sick, she stays home and loses pay for that day, but it shows to me her family comes first.

She was very grateful to our family, as well as the Washington foundation for this gift. She indicated that it would help out tremendously with groceries and gas.

It was an honor to be chosen to distribute this.

Thank you

I gave my Pay it Forward card to the Youth Homes as part of the Run 4 Kids team fundraiser for the Missoula Marathon. I have been a part of the Run 4 Kids team for several years and am proud to have the opportunity to help this organization.

Youth Homes is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization that cares for children who are facing abuse, neglect, emotional trauma and substance abuse problems. Through their emergency shelters, therapeutic group homes, foster care and adoption programs and counseling services, they provide a safe refuge for kids while they begin the difficult process of healing. They show them compassion and teach them how to build healthy relationships. They help them trust again and give them the opportunities to build confidence and find happiness.

Thank you to the Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation for the opportunity to Pay it Forward.

The McDermott family, Vern and Rena, have had a few hard years. In December 2020 they lost their daughter to cancer. They were just getting back on their feet when in October 2021 Vern had a stroke. He was a bus driver for the Superior School District and Rena has her own cleaning business. Vern has not been able to return to his job, and Rena has had to take off lots of time while caring for him. The money from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation helped them tremendously in a time of great need.