The 2014 Sharing Project of the Caring Fund raised $15,000 to provide free window inserts to 135 needy families, primarily from the Belfast, ME, area, enabling the beneficiaries to save a total of almost $44,000 in fuel expenses per heating season -- real savings that they can spend on other necessities.

The 2014 Sharing Project started from the premise that poverty is not limited to far-away countries: People right in our midst struggle to keep financially above water. A severe winter adds to their burden. Often they must choose between keeping warm and eating, filling prescriptions, buying children’s clothes and other necessities.

A local organization, WindowDressers manufactures high-quality inserts for windows that significantly reduce heat loss through drafty windows. An average family in an average Maine house can save fuel expenses of $325 per heating season in an average winter (and the 2013/14 winter was not ‘average’), and $3,250 over the life of the inserts.

Few charitable projects have as large, as real and as immediate benefits: savings of almost three times the cost of the investment in a single heating season -- and almost 30 times over the life of the investment -- are rare indeed.

Add to that the environmental savings in CO2 emissions resulting from the reduction of heat loss -- about 220 lbs per house, 29,700 lbs per season for all beneficiaries, and 297,000 lbs over the life of the Project -- and the size of the Project benefits is almost unique for a neighborhood project.