Transportation Assistance Needs Assistance

— from Orcas Community Resource Center —

The longer you live in the San Juan Islands, the more you realize that residing in our beautiful and uncrowded environment can make access to some important services very difficult—notably specialty medical care.

This difficulty is most severe for islanders who are most in need—persons with serious or debilitating illnesses who don’t have ready access to transportation or sufficient resources to purchase it. You may know someone who needed to travel to the mainland for a medical procedure, maybe a lab test or cancer treatment, but did not have a car or could not afford the ferry fare, and so went without.

There is a solution to this problem. It is called the Transportation Assistance Program (TAP), administered confidentially by the Orcas Community Resource Center. The volunteers and staff at the Resource Center cobble together funding from several different government and private programs to provide ferry tickets, cars and drivers, and help islanders in need access that help.
Examples abound.

Sam was diagnosed with cancer last year and had to travel off island regularly for several months to receive chemotherapy. The privately funded Medical Ferry Ticket Fund provided a five-ride pass to help with travel expenses. Kate is a single mom who has a potentially blinding eye disease. Because she is a Medicaid recipient, Resource Center staff could use funds from the Northwest Regional Council (NWRC) transportation program to pay her transportation costs for regular treatments on the mainland. Mary is a senior who has monthly appointments on the mainland for arthritis therapy. She is usually able to purchase her own ferry tickets, but during tighter months, the Resource Center can help through the Transportation Voucher Program administered through San Juan County.

All three of these TAP components are chronically short of money. Sometimes charitable organizations such as the Orcas Island Community Foundation or the Orcas Island Tatas (breast cancer survivors) have been able to step to the plate to fill funding gaps in the Medical Ferry Ticket Fund. But the need for these services does not and will not go away. Resource Center staff sometimes fear they will have to turn away people who could benefit from one or more of the available programs.

The Resource Center is currently seeking to build capability to sustain its operations through expanded government support and regular giving by members of the Orcas Community. But in the meantime, donations are needed to maintain TAP!

If you can help, there are several easy ways to give. Easiest is to go to the Resource Center’s website at www.orcascrc.org and make a contribution via credit card. There is a memo box on the donation processing page where you can indicate that you wish your gift to go for transportation assistance. Another way is to go to the Orcas Island Community Foundation website at www.oicf.us/, click on the Donate Now button, and select the “Transportation Assistance Fund” as the recipient of your gift.

Finally, you can always mail a check made out to OCRC with the designation “Transportation Assistance Program/Medical Ferry Ticket Fund” to Orcas Community Resource Center, PO Box 931, Eastsound, WA 98245. Gifts to this program may be tax deductible. Questions? Call 376-3184!