The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley (CACLV) has received a half-million dollar donation to help pay off the $3 million bank loan on its new expanded food distribution warehouse in East Allen Township. Executive Director Alan Jennings made the surprise announcement to the 250 people attending CACLV’s annual meeting and luncheon commemorating the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty.

The pledge from Mike Gausling, CACLV treasurer, and his son Andrei, is the largest contribution from a private citizen the organization has ever received, according to Jennings, who said the gift was made in honor of Gausling’s wife Sharon, who died in late September. It brings the money raised for the building campaign to $2.4 million.

Purchased last November, the building is a 65,000-square-foot warehouse capable of distributing 8 million pounds of food to 200 nonprofits that collectively feed more than 65,000 people a month, Jennings said, adding that the building will now be called Sharon’s Pantry.

“I can say without hesitation that this gift will ensure that no one, especially the precious little children who motivated Sharon the most, will go to bed hungry at night for lack of food in the emergency assistance system in the Lehigh Valley.”

Gausling, with his partners, founded OraSure, a publicly traded medical technology company specializing in point-of-care diagnostic tests and specimen collection devices. The company is located in South Bethlehem.

Board of Directors President Olga Negron encouraged attendees at the Renaissance Hotel in Allentown to read the “50 Years of Community Action,” an annual report prepared in recognition of the signing of President Johnson’s Economic Opportunity Act, and handed out at the luncheon. It featured a historic timeline of the United States from 1964-2015, along with significant achievements during the past year of CACLV and the myriad programs affiliated with it.

The efforts mentioned in the report include community problem-solving, encouraging racial and ethnic economic justice through minimum wage support, providing access to credit, and promoting community development and home ownership. Together with the Community Action Development Corp., the six-year Upside Allentown effort was launched, and the fifth year of the Jordan Heights Neighborhood Partneship revitalization project was completed.

To underscore the personal dimensions of community action, Board Vice President Patricia Jackson introduced two individuals with success stories.

“The impact we have on real people’s lives is what matters most,” she said. “It is my pleasure to introduce to you two very special people who not only benefited from CACLV’s services, but have also joined us in the War on Poverty.”

Lizette Soto moved from Puerto Rico with her children in 1998 when she was 34 years old. The person who was supposed to meet her at Newark Airport never showed up, so she slept in a park and in an abandoned house. She finally got in touch with a friend in Allentown, and moved into CACLV’s temporary shelter for homeless families with children. During the next seven years, Soto got an education, a job, a promotion and a driver’s license. In 2005, she purchased her first home through the First Time Homebuyers Program.

Bethlehem native Otis McNeil, at age 16, was working for a weatherization company, where he became acquainted with CACLV’s Weatherization Program to help families with home heating problems. When he turned 18, he decided to start his own weatherization business, but he couldn’t get a bank loan until he completed the Start Your Business Course, an intensive entrepreneurial program that helps students develop a high-quality business plan. With help from the Rising Tide Community Loan Fund, McNeil launched Custom Weatherization, LLC, in 2005.

Today McNeil, has seven employees working in two crews to weatherize some 300 homes a year. Next year he plans to add three more crews to continue to work with CACLV and to expand into the private market.

In his comments at the end of the meeting, Jennings said CACLV would continue to work to reduce wealth disparity, to expand its intervention in the housing market, to use partnerships to invest in urban neighborhoods, and seek funding to help teenagers avoid the types of decisions that lead to a lifetime of problems.

“We can love our neighbors or we can fend for ourselves. We can see the world getting smaller every day and try to find common ground or we can blow each other to smithereens. We can pursue justice or we can crank up charity.”