Fuel assistance agencies get boost from petroleum distributor

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Two Springfield-area agencies have received additional money to help low income families buy home heating oil right now.

Wholesale petroleum distributor L.E. Belcher gave $5,000 each to the fuel assistance directors of the New England Farm Workers Council in Springfield and the Valley Opportunity Council in Holyoke. Their fuel aid budgets are nearly empty, and the money received Friday will only go so far. Still, it’s much appreciated.

“In all honesty, we're going to make it go as far as possible. But we're only going to give people 100 gallons at the cost of what it is today, It's maybe going to take care of 14-15 families,” Gail Pisacne of the Valley Opportunity Council said.

Single mother of two Katie Marie O'Keefe of Chicopee is one of the lucky ones picked to receive the 100 gallons of heating oil. She told 22News that she will try to make it last for the rest of winter.

“We ran out of oil for two weeks and we froze, I mean we stayed in one room, we blocked off all the other rooms, I had a space heater here, I had a space heater here,” O’Keefe said.

Between them, the Valley Opportunity Council and the New England Farm Workers provide federal fuel aid assistance to 30,000 families here in western Massachusetts.