Reachout - Donations

Dear friends,

What a year this has been! Our 40th year of service to northern New York included new hires for our mobile crisis team, dozens of new volunteers, and some much-needed repairs to our building. Karen Easter (our Executive Director) won the highest national award from the National Association of Crisis Organization Directors in gratitude for her decades of service. Less happily, you may have heard that hotlines across the country are under threat of defunding even as callers are reaching out in record numbers for help in the aftermath of the election.

Our work directly supports many of the people society pushes to the margins: people living through poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and bigotry toward transgender and LGBTQ people. Beyond our hotline and mobile crisis counseling programs, we also offer suicide intervention training and an after-hours support service that allows local agencies to offer 24/7 service without quadrupling their staff costs. We believe that callers should never have to face an uncertain future alone.

We're facing our own uncertainty next year, as political changes at every level of government make non-profit funding an open question without clear answers. We've survived days like these before, thanks to a combination of careful management, prudent spending, and the generosity of donors who've given to our general fund, but we can't do it alone.

We'd like your help in weathering the coming storm—together.

Why donate?

We treasure donations because they typically come without the strings and bureaucratic reporting requirements that attach to government funding. All of that reporting takes time, and that takes money—money that we can't use for service. Donors know us and trust us to make the best use of the precious resources they're sharing with us, and that trust gives us the flexibility to use the money wherever it's most needed. Whether it's replacing a broken phone system immediately, sending extra mobile crisis counselors right away to work in a community wracked by suicide loss, or simply hiring extra staff to cover busy periods, donations are crucial for helping us respond with speed and agility to the needs of our community.

We can receive donations by mail at:

Reachout of St. Lawrence County, Inc.
PO Box 5051
Potsdam NY 13676

If you prefer to donate electronically, please click the Donate button, and you'll be taken to PayPal (which can take credit cards and PayPal funds).

Donations are tax-deductible and deeply appreciated. If you're curious, $100 lets us hire overnight coverage for a long December night—so the rest of the world can settle in for a long winter's nap sure in the knowledge that we stand ready. $5000 covers the cost of Training Weekend for a semester and makes it possible to start training another crop of dedicated new volunteers.

At the end of the day, donations help us ensure that, no matter when people call, there will always be someone there to answer. Will you help us?

Thank you for your support!

Karen, Bob, Ed, Julie, Sara, Lee, Casey, Hollis, and all the Reachout volunteers (you can join us!)


Bob, Karen, and Hollis