KEEP THE HEAT ON

Heat dollars will be 'stretched to last’

Posted

BURRILLVILLE — Like many other Rhode Island families, Mary Ann and Anthony McKeon are struggling to pay rent and utility bills as well as to buy groceries.

When a recent cold snap hit the region, they could not afford oil to heat their modest home. Mary Ann sought help from the Town of Burrillville, whose officials referred her, as a parishioner of Our Lady of Help Church, to the diocesan Office of Community Services and Advocacy.

Once it was determined that the couple was eligible for heating assistance, the McKeons received 100 gallons of heating oil made possible by Bishop Thomas J. Tobin’s “Keep the Heat On” program.

"We are very fortunate to have found the program,” said Mary Ann McKeon. “I was heating water to wash dishes. We turned off the furnace switch when we saw that we were down to nothing.” The 48 year-old woman, who works as a bus monitor supervising special needs children, leaves for work on school days at 5:30 a.m. After a mid-day break, she returns to her job and gets home at 4:30 p.m. Her husband Anthony, 43, is disabled and suffers from chronic hypertension.

“We are not elderly, and I can’t imagine how they [older people] struggle,” McKeon emphasized. “There is no calling in sick here. I cannot afford to miss a day’s work. My husband’s disability check covers the rent and pays one bill. We don’t have cable, or any luxuries.”

McKeon emphasized that the 100 gallons of oil provided by Keep the Heat On will be “stretched to last as long as possible.” She doesn’t raise the thermostat higher than 64 degrees on frigid days, and shuts it off when outdoor temperatures are mild.

“I’m sure we will get the oil to last a little longer than most people,” McKeon said. “We treat it

like gold.”

The couple also conserves heat by wearing thermal underwear, turtlenecks and heavy sweaters in the house. The McKeons have applied to the state for heating assistance, but they have yet to learn about whether they qualify.

“If we don’t get that, I don’t know what we will do,” she lamented. “I don’t know what we would have done without “Keep the Heat On. ’We would have just had a little electric heater to heat

one room and we would have had to stay there.”

To donate to the heating assistance program, send donations to “Keep the Heat On,” Office of

Community Services and Advocacy, 184 Broad Street, Providence, RI 02903; or visit the Web site www.heatri.com