'$28K in 28 Days'

EPHRATA — For $28, you can buy a couple days’ worth of groceries, two or three fast food lunches or maybe a respectable bottle of wine. But if 1,000 people chip in $28, His Helping Hands can have its own kitchen. 

At the beginning of the month, the Columbia Basin Foundation kicked off its 28K in 28 Days campaign, encouraging Basin residents to chip in $28 each to support the nonprofit.  

“We need $200,000 … and my goal was to get all of it by March 1,” said Corinne Isaak, executive director of the Columbia Basin Foundation. “I just felt that we needed to get to the finish line. Out of that $200,000 that we needed to raise over the wintertime, we're down to $28,000. We want to put an all-call out to community members so that they understand the project and His Helping Hands, and then they can be a part of something for $28.” 

“We had not really gone out to the community (before) because we’ve been applying for grants, and we’ve been working with corporate donors and some larger private donors,” Isaak said. “But it was time because some people drive by and they go ‘What’s going on in there?’ So, we need to have support from the community to get to the finish line.” 

His Helping Hands started out in 2011 helping people in need with warm coats and a Christmas dinner, and in November 2024 they moved into half of the former Grant County Journal building, with Crossroads Pregnancy Resource Center on the other side. The Columbia Basin Foundation was instrumental in adapting the building for both organizations. 

“We received some large ARPA grants for nonprofits to renovate the building,” Isaak said. “Our first phase was the Crossroads side … And then our second phase was to get the entry, the laundry, the coat closet, everything done for His Helping Hands. We finished that utilizing grants, and the third phase is to create the industrial kitchen and gathering room.” 

His Helping Hands offers winter clothing, sleeping bags and hygiene packs for people in need November through February, as well as showers and laundry facilities and a once-a-month free lunch. The planned kitchen and gathering room will let the volunteers serve a free meal to the public every day, said His Helping Hands founder Dawn Prince. 

“We couldn’t do a commercial kitchen because the price was astronomical for that,” Prince said. “We are able to do a full kitchen with residential appliances that will meet all the standards to be able to serve meals to the public.” 

The new space will seat 35 people, even while the rest of the center’s operations are going on, Prince said.

“We (will) have the ability to make to-go meals, (for when) people have got their kids and they’re not necessarily going to want to sit down and have a meal, but they’ll take it to go,” Prince said. 

The campaign will run through March 1 online, and received a handful of donations as of Thursday. Donors can visit www.cbfcommunity.org or scan the QR code. 

“If everybody does a little, we gain a lot,” Isaak said. 

      

    With help from the Columbia Basin Foundation, His Helping Hands was able to begin offering self-service laundry to those in need.