Project Self-Sufficiency holds fundraiser breakfast

Sally Easter was in a troubled marriage with four children and a $12-an-hour job. When she decided to leave the marriage, her financial situation only got worse.

"I remember waking up and seeing clearly for the first time that I had to get out," Easter said Tuesday morning at a breakfast fundraiser for Project Self-Sufficiency.

With no idea what career path she could take to better her and her children's life, Easter turned to Project Self-Sufficiency.

The agency, in operation since 1986, helps low-income single parents in Larimer County achieve economic independence.

The program provides a number of services, including help with housing and transportation, parenting classes, adequate child care and adviser assistance.

The organization held its third annual community breakfast Tuesday, raising $14,050 with an additional $22,655 in pledges. It costs approximately $6,500 to help a family each year, excluding vehicle assistance.

"None of us are really self-made," Nick Chris-tensen, president of Chrisland Commercial Real Estate Inc., said at the breakfast.

"We all need a little help sometimes," he said.

For Easter, Project Self-Sufficiency helped her identify her career goals and helped her provide housing for her four children while she went to school.

Finishing up her prerequisites, Easter will apply for pharmacy school this fall.

"Going into it, I didn't even know what I was capable of," Easter said Tuesday after the breakfast.

"The life before, it was about surviving year to year. Getting into Project Self-Sufficiency, it was like 'we are living now - we have dreams, we have goals.' "

In 2008, the nonprofit served 158 families. The average person uses the program for three years, said Mary Carraher, Project Self-Sufficiency's executive director.

About 70 people are on the waiting list in Fort Collins, with an additional 63 people in Loveland, Carraher said.

In 1999, Theresa Bain was a single mother with the knowledge that she wanted to help people and support her daughters. She turned to Project Self-Sufficiency.

Now, with a degree in social work from Colorado State University, Bain is the family services coordinator for the Fort Collins Habitat for Humanity.

"They (PS-S) are a group in the trenches picking up pieces of families and putting them back together," Bain said. "They helped me see the impossible is actually possible."