Video: Two Local Organizations Receive Big Donations

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Two groups receive big donations from a worldwide company.

Dutch Oil Company nominated two non-profit organizations to receive checks from Shell Oil Company and Motiva Enterprises.

The Last House on the Block and Recovery House Inc. were selected from a national pool to receive $20,000 dollars a each.

Shell donates money every year to organizations around the country working to fight the drug epidemic.

For non-profit organizations, donations are the fuel that keeps the engine running, and today’s $40,000 dollar boost is welcome news.

For these two organizations, the money couldn’t have come at a better time.

With public sources of funding being uncertain, many local agencies are finding themselves relying more on private donations like these.

“This past year has been very hard on us with losing some of our federal funding, so this money will help us to put services back in place that we had to discontinue,” says Recovery House Executive Director, Stephanie Johnson.

“It’s a blessing in disguise to us. We’re building a new house to house four men for extended living and it came just in time because we were raising funds to do it, and you know, it just looked like it just fell in our lap,” says The Last House on the Block House Manager, Billy Jordan.

Turning lives around is the mission of both organizations, and that’s why Dutch Oil Company nominated them for the large sum of cash.

“We just have known them in the local community as being very good at turning around people that have addictions, and we know of people that have come out of them, we’ve known where they’ve been employed, and gone back to normal lifestyles and being productive citizens,” says Dutch Oil Company President, Rex Gillis.

The Last House On the Block is an extended living sober program for men, that helps get them back into society successfully. The money will go towards needed supplies to help with the group’s goal.

“To be an asset instead of a liability. Also, to mend the fences with their families and their children and society as a whole, and most of all to be Christ centered, and to give back to the community, just as well as the community gave to them,” says Jordan.

Johnson says a portion of the $20,000 dollars will go towards their building fund, which will help treat more people suffering from addictions.

“Women who come to us, so many of them have suffered trauma in their past, and being able to come and to really get to the core of their problem is huge, and then they’re able to go out and be productive citizens in our communities.”