104 Main Street PO Box 64183
Souderton, PA 18964
Office: 215-723-5430
Fax: 215-799-0739
104 Main Street PO Box 64183
Souderton, PA 18964
Office: 215-723-5430
Fax: 215-799-0739
With your help, Keystone Opportunity Center raised $63,000 last spring to support needed services for our community!
This Spring, we ask you to help us reach an even more ambitious goal: $75,000!
Why? With rising inflation and the economic aftermath of COVID-19, Keystone Opportunity Center has seen a 20% increase in requests for assistance. Our low-income friends and neighbors feel the impact of rising prices more acutely than those with greater means do, because they have less to make ends meet in the first place.
Why? With rising inflation and the economic aftermath of COVID-19, 
Keystone Opportunity Center has seen a 20% increase in requests for assistance. Our low-income friends and neighbors feel the impact of rising prices more acutely than those with greater means do, because they have less to make ends meet in the first place.
The latest Consumer Price Index data reports that inflation rose 8.5% for the 12-month period ending this past March – a level not seen since 1981. The impact? Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, reports that 80% of food pantries are seeing the demand for food assistance increasing, and every aspect of food distribution operations is experiencing significant cost hikes to due inflation.
Keystone Opportunity Center has witnessed this first-hand. We have already exhausted our funding from the County for food until July. And, while we continue to work with our wholesale suppliers to maximize the impact of every dollar we have for food, prices can be up to 40% more than a year ago.
The reality is that too many of our neighbors who were already experiencing economic challenges must make increasingly difficult decisions about how to spend their dollars, every day. Household budgeting has become a nightmare, with low-income families now needing to spend about a third of their dollars on food alone. The result – a dramatic decline in children’s, adults’ and families’ overall stability and security.
The affordable housing situation is equally dire in Pennsylvania, in the wake of the pandemic. 
The National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania reported in April that there are just 39 affordable and available homes for every 100 of the extreme low-income households across the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania faces a shortage of 266,618 affordable and available units.
The lowest-income renters today are uniquely positioned to suffer disproportionately from the effects of lost income and housing insecurity during the pandemic. Although the federal government took unprecedented actions to protect lowest-income renters during the pandemic through eviction moratoriums, these temporary measures are now lifted, resulting in a tsunami of homelessness across the US and right here in our community.
With rents rising, our housing team is responding to multiple requests for assistance each day. We continue to search for affordable rental properties and work to develop creative solutions that best support adults and families facing housing instability.
We are able to help, THANKS TO YOU! Keystone Opportunity Center stretches every available dollar to help the children, adults and seniors in need by providing housing, food and education support with the goal of self-sufficiency. We cannot thank you enough for being there.
Please support your neighbors in need, once again, during these unprecedented circumstances. We ask you to make a generous gift that best reflects your commitment and compassion to the needs of others – and provides help and hope.
It is with deep sadness that Keystone Opportunity Center announces the death of John Lyon, Board Member, former Interim Executive Director, and long time volunteer.
