One-woman charity nears final days after 50 years
Published: September 23, 2005
After five decades of helping the needy, Nancy Stockham is shutting the doors to the charity that she runs out of her Adelaide Street home.
Stockham, 74, said the city’s recent decision to eliminate funding for her program is the main reason, but not the only one.
“Three-quarters of it was (the city decision) and one-quarter of it is that I’m older,” she said. “I have always planned in my mind to work until I was 80, but you know, I couldn’t.”
Stockham still plans to hold this year’s Thanksgiving food basket program and Genesee County Christmas Wrap-In, which provides presents to elderly people and poor children.
But she said that will be it.
“GRACE will be closed,” Stockham said firmly, referring to her charity God Rewards All Christian Endeavors.
Her assistant, Marlene Eller, said no one else will take over GRACE.
“Who could take it over?” she said. “Who could and who would? Nobody. No way. I’ve been here by her side for a long time, and I know what goes into it.”
Stockham, a retired Genesee Count Friend of the Court caseworker, has provided food, clothes, school supplies and advice to thousands of people. The charity has about 2,500 clients, Eller said.
“I think she should be called the Mother Nancy of Fenton,” said Karen Bancroft, one of the people whom Stockham has helped.
Bancroft, who recently moved from Fenton Township to Howell, said Stockham gave her money to take her terminally ill husband to the hospital several years ago.
After he died, Bancroft said Stockham arranged for a post-funeral dinner for 200 people.
“It was such a wonderful feeling knowing that there was someone that cared,” Bancroft said.
Earlier this month, Stockham said she was shocked to find that the city had eliminated annual funding of about $15,000 for her programs.
No one notified her of the decision, she said. City officials have said they had previously told her the funding was going to be eliminated, but Stockham said that wasn’t so.
“I regret that it’s had to end like this, because she definitely will create a void in the city,” said Mayor Sue Osborn. “We appreciate everything that she’s done. She definitely has made Fenton a better community.”
City officials met Wednesday with Eller. Both Osborn and Eller said the city offered to enter a contract with GRACE that would allow the program to get city funding for providing specific services for the city. Stockham declined.
Osborn said the city made the same offer previously, but Stockham and Eller said that wasn’t the case.
The previous arrangement the city had with Stockham was determined by city attorneys to be illegal, Osborn said, because it’s illegal for a city to donate money to a charity, particularly when it spends taxpayer money on people who live outside the city.
City Councilwoman Dianne North said she didn’t realize the budget the City Council approved in May included elimination of funding for GRACE.
North acknowledged voting for the budget, but said she was under the impression that Stockham’s funding would be discussed at a later date.
“It should have happened differently, and I think it was handled poorly,” she said. “You can’t replace people like these people.”
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