Flashback 1988: Disaster Trust Fund

October 20, 2010

It all began 30 years ago when Gordon Holnbeck, a former Peterborough councillor, spearheaded the Peterborough City/County Disaster Trust Fund, set up to provide immediate temporary lodging, food and other basic needs, including even financial assistance when required, to those who lose their living space to fire. In this segment of Flashback we return to 1988 when the trust fund had reached the significant milestone of self sufficiency. Despite fluctuating interest rates of late, the trust fund, thanks to prudent investment practices, has remained primarily self sufficient .... and while donations are not actively solicited they are nonetheless gratefully accepted when offered and have in fact been very helpful in keeping the fund solvent over it's 30 years of existence. In those three decades the City County Disaster Trust Fund has assisted over 11 hundred families and nearly 28 hundred individuals at a cost in excess of 350-thousand dollars, and the committee remains optimistic that, in the years to come, will continue to play it's important humanitarian role in the community.