Sister Pat Kelley

Those of us associated with the National Fuel Funds Network best know Sr. Pat, as she was affectionately called, as being a founding member of the NFFN and driving force behind the organization from its infancy.

Sr. Pat entered her religious community, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, after graduating from Incarnate Word Academy in St. Louis in 1955. She received her bachelors and master’s degrees from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio.

During her professional life, Sr. Pat worked as a teacher, vocational counselor and volunteer probation and parole officer in hospitals and in pastoral service. After 25 years of religious life, Sr. Pat went to Sedona, Ariz. in 1980 for a yearlong retreat. She returned determined to devote the rest of her life to helping the poor and elderly.

In March 1981 she was selected to administer a one-year $20,000 grant from the National Council of Senior Citizens. The grant established “Missouri Project Energycare” to assist low- and fixed-income elderly with energy-related needs. The project came about as a result of the terrible summer of 1980 when more than 1,500 elderly across the nation died of heat-related causes.

The following year, Laclede Gas Co. in St. Louis approached Sr. Pat to develop the first private fuel and energy assistance fund in the St. Louis area, Dollar-Help, Inc. Since its inception, Dollar-Help has distributed millions of dollars on behalf of thousands of low-income families and elderly people in eastern Missouri to help them pay delinquent home heating bills.

By 1983, just two years after it was established, federal funding for Missouri Project Energycare ceased. In September of that year, Sr. Pat continued the work she had begun by founding Missouri Energycare, Inc. as an independent nonprofit organization. She served as the organization’s president and executive director.

In 1984, Sr. Pat was the recipient of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat’s prestigious Humanities Award – the only woman so honored in the award’s 26-year history.

On Monday September 28, 1987, Sr. Pat was found murdered in her office, a victim of senseless violence. News of her death made headlines. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial called her “sort of a saint” and stated that “she raised not only money – she also raised the consciousness of those who could make a difference in the plight of those who too often have to do without.”

Sister’s work on local, state and national levels as a ‘voice of the poor’ to elected public policy makers also was noted in the Congressional Record by such respected members of Congress as Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and the Honorable Jack Buechner of Missouri.

Following her tragic death, Sr. Pat posthumously received many awards and honors including a Public Service Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Support Administration. The NFFN established a special Travel Scholarship Fund in her honor and an annual achievement award that bears her name.

The organizations Sr. Pat helped found are active today and continuing the work she began. Sister’s dream was simple: to keep the elderly, ill and low-income citizens of America safe, comfortable and in their own homes. Her vision, leadership and personal energy contributed to the actualization of her desire, in the words of her favorite Ninth Psalm, that “the needy will not be forgotten not the hope of the poor taken away.”

Victorine Q. Adams

When Victorine Q. Adams passed away at the age of 93 in January 2006, she left a powerful legacy spanning decades of involvement in politics, education and social issues.

A pioneer for black women seeking political office, she was the first black woman elected to the Baltimore City Council and also served in the Maryland House of Delegates. Mrs. Adams was a mentor to many aspiring politicians and at the time of her death, black women held three of the top four citywide elected positions. Baltimore City now has all four citywide elected positions held by black women.

According to an article by Gregory Kane in the January 11, 2006 editions of the Baltimore Sun, “If that happens (all four offices held by black women) it might be a historic first not only for Baltimore but for the nation. Inevitably, someone will ask who should rightfully get the credit. The answer will be simple: Victorine Q. Adams.”

Her story began in the loving and nurturing home of her parents, Joseph C. and Estelle Tate Quille, who instilled early in her life the importance of faith and education. Her education at Douglas High School, Coppin and Morgan State universities led Mrs. Adams into a teaching career. For 14 years she taught school and shaped the values of many young people.

Social issues, especially those surrounding the impoverished, were also an important part of Mrs. Adams’ life. It was a tragedy in the winter of 1978 in Baltimore caused by a family lacking utility service that spurred Mrs. Adams to action. Using all of her political and educational skills she approached then Mayor William Donald Schaefer and the late City Council President Walter Orlinsky about the idea of a fund to help people with their energy bills.

With support from the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company and others, the Baltimore Fuel Fund was formed. The fund is now known as the Victorine Q. Adams Fuel Fund in her honor. This fledgling concept of a fuel fund spread across the nation.

Out of the burgeoning fuel fund movement, a need developed for a national organization to assist in the sharing of information by the growing number of fuel funds. The National Fuel Funds Network (NFFN) was formed to meet this need. Mrs. Adams was a stalwart supporter of and mentor to the NFFN. She always tried to come up with creative ways to raise contributions for low-income energy assistance, whether it was from her annual Christmas card solicitation or standing with a jar at Baltimore’s Harborplace during Paddle for People, an annual fundraiser held by the Fuel Fund of Maryland for many years.

Toward the end of her life, Mrs. Adams wanted to help the NFFN start a program that would encourage fuel funds to incorporate the best fundraising practices in their programs and to employ new methods for raising funds for energy assistance. With initial funding coming from the Adams Foundation and a matching grant from the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company, her dream is coming to fruition in the first Victorine Q. Adams Fundraising Institute to be held in Baltimore in September 2008.

Henry C. Alting

For more than 30 years, Henry Alting dedicated himself to improving the lives of the less-fortunate. It was a lifelong passion that grew from personal experience.

He was born May 3, in Djakarta, Indonesia, the son of Zeno and Cornelia Carpentier-Alting. The family suffered great hardship during World War II, interned in concentration camps by the Japanese for almost four years attending school in the Netherlands before returning to Djakarta in 1952.

Shortly after his marriage in 1954, Alting immigrated to the United States, becoming a citizen in 1960. He was proud to be an American and for the next several decades worked hard to improve the quality of life for less fortunate citizens.

He received his bachelor’s degree from Pace College in New York, and his master’s degree for the University of Michigan. His graduate studies focused on adult and community education, which would help prepare him for his work in the ear on poverty – the cause to which he would dedicate the next 20 years of his life.

For 12 years, Alting served as the executive director of the Michigan Community Action Agency Association (MCAAA). He loved his work, which included lobbying in Lansing on behalf of community action agencies across the state. He petitioned for funding of special programs and services for the economically disadvantaged.

In 1982, he joined to Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., or MichCon, as manager of constituent group relations. He worked out of the Detroit office until his death in 1996 after a two-year battle with cancer. His hard work on behalf of the less fortunate has left a permanent impression on several community service agencies, including the Detroit United Way and Washtenaw County Employment Training and Community Service Agency.

We honor Henry Alting today as a founding member of the Heat and Warmth Fund of Detroit and the Campaign to Keep Michigan Warm, as well as an original member of the National Fuel Funds Network Board of Directors. During his tenure he served as the Board’s corresponding secretary, membership chairperson and newsletter editor.

Deeply committed to community action and grassroots organizing, Alting believed that NFFN could provide valuable support to state and regional coalitions helping to honor his memory, NFFN created the Henry C. Alting Fund in 1997 to support state-level energy assistance coalition-building.