USA Cares receives $1 million grant

[Hannibal]

By ERICA WALSH/Elizabethtown News-Enterprise

When USA Cares operations officer Roger Stradley checked the mail on Dec. 30, he expected to take a quick glance through the letters and find nothing out of the ordinary.

What he didn’t expect was a check for $500,000 with a notice that another half-million was on the way.

“I opened an envelope and there it was,” Stradley said. “It was one of those things where you read it five times before you believe it.”

USA Cares, a Radcliff-based nonprofit, received the $1 million grant from an anonymous donor through the California Community Foundation.
“I don’t have any idea who it is,” Stradley said. “Whoever it is wanted to support an organization that took care of all military families.”

The only requirement of the grant was that USA Cares use the money to continue helping military families in need, particularly those whose needs have arisen because of recent service in Afghanistan or Iraq.

“The challenge is that he wants us to grow and keep doing what we’re doing,” Stradley said. “We’re taking steps to do that.”

The funding will allow USA Cares to raise the limit on how much monetary assistance it can give each family, Stradley said.

What makes this grant different from others that USA Cares has received in its three years of existence is that it had no idea it was coming. The
organization never applied for a grant from the California Community Foundation.

“It is clear that our approach to full disclosure is making the difference between us and other similar charitable organizations,” USA Cares President John Tindall said in a release. “It is a matter of trust between contributors and the organization that has helped us reach this milestone.”

USA Cares has provided about $991,000 to more than 1,700 military families since its inception. It has been working hard to maintain the confidence of its donors and the families it helps, Stradley said.
“We’re hoping to become one of the charities of choice,” he said.