In reflecting over my past year as Executive Director with Spare Key – one word that comes to mind time and time again is “hope”.
I was recently looking through Spare Key’s archived documents and I came across an end of year giving letter that our founder, Patsy Keech wrote in 2003 titled “Caring Strangers bring Hope.”
In that email, she included testimonials from families we had helped that year. A father wrote:
“Without Spare Key, I believe I would not be writing you this note from my kitchen table in the house in which we still live. When we were losing hope, there you were.”
She also included a note from a 15-year-old girl that said:
“I was in a car accident a year ago and I was in the hospital for two months. Because of your generosity, my parents were there with me the whole time. I will be eternally grateful to you for helping my family when we needed it most.”
Spare Key’s founding principle of giving families the gift of time by their loved one’s side to focus on recovering as a family still holds true to this day. And it’s because of generous donors like you that we fulfill this mission every year.
While Spare Key has grown our impact with the launch of our Help Me Bounce program, our mission has not wavered. We continue helping families facing devastating medical crises, “No matter the illness. No matter the injury. No matter the income.”
A family whose son was in the hospital fighting for his life when they found Help Me Bounce, recently wrote us:
“I still remember the morning that I got the email very clearly. We were sitting in his hospital room hoping that the 50% chance we were living in was the one where we would get to bring him home. My phone dinged, I opened it and quite literally started crying. It was the email that told us that our campaign was full. We had raised just over $4,100 to make our mortgage payment for the next 6 months, Happy New Year’s Day to us. That made it possible for both my husband and I to keep working. We drove 5 hours, one way, to see our son every weekend. The only way this could be possible was with this support. Our son is home and no one would know his past by looking at him. We are eternally grateful for Spare Key through the Help Me Bounce program.”
“Caring Strangers Bring Hope”
It was true in 2003 and it’s true today. For that – Spare Key is grateful to you.
As we closed out another year here at Spare Key, our nonprofit had a lot to be grateful for.
We are grateful for our small but mighty team dedicated to helping families across the nation.
We are grateful for our Board of Directors for their expertise, guidance, and unwavering support of our mission.
We are grateful for our donors that support both Spare Key and families directly through our Help Me Bounce program.
We are grateful for our partners and corporate sponsors that strengthen our mission each year through events and donations.
We are grateful for our volunteers that ensure those events run smoothly each year.
We are grateful for every single one of you for bringing hope to the families we serve.
You help Spare Key fulfill our mission each year of helping families facing devastating medical crisis, “No matter the illness. No matter the injury. No matter the income.”
On behalf of our Spare Key team, Board of Directors, and the families we serve, thank you for another incredible year of helping more families than ever facing real hardship pay real bills in real time.
Sarah Putnam
Executive Director