A taken-aback Carol Willis, director of development for CCS, gave the envelope to director Dean Preheim-Bartel and then stepped back to watch his reaction.
"Do you know how much this is?" Preheim-Bartel asked Willis. She nodded.
"Holy cow. I think I need you to get me a chair," he said.
The check showed up just as Willis had been discussing the complete cessation of emergency assistance to CCS clients. The agency stopped providing utility and rent assistance in the fall due to a lack of funds. For the same reason, it then stopped providing prescription assistance Dec. 1.
Due to the magnanimous gesture, Preheim-Bartel said that as of Jan. 4, the agency will return to granting emergency assistance requests. He expects the majority of those to involve utility bill assistance and requests for help with deposits to get utilities reconnected. No other agency in Elkhart offers deposit assistance to get utilities reconnected, Preheim-Bartel said. Even those residents who are enrolled in the utility company's assistance program are only guaranteed not to have their heat turned off until around mid-March, he added.
CCS will make money from the gift available to the public immediately, but also establish a plan to extend its impact into the spring. For the moment, however, Preheim-Bartel and Willis said they plan to jump and shout a little.
The donor said that he and his wife decided over the weekend to make an additional big donation to the community.
"We didn't get Christmas gifts for each other this year. Instead we had fun planning this," he said Monday.
He added that they chose CCS as the recipient because they felt that the agency is "on the front lines" of taking care of Elkhart residents who are hurting financially.
"If the goal here is to acknowledge that there are great needs, then the individual with the capacity to do something and an open wallet can go a long way toward creating a neighborly spirit," the donor said.
The gift is the largest that CCS has ever received for emergency assistance. A similar amount was donated within the last year as a capital campaign gift but disbursement was spread over four years.