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Two nonprofit leaders stepped one floor down from their office to provide a quick presentation to a group of 20 people about their organizations, but had no idea it was just a ruse.
The endgame for the March 3 presentation at the Community Foundation for San Benito County’s Epicenter building? It was for United for San Benito to present both Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of San Benito County and Emmaus House with a $10,000 check.
“It was a great surprise,” Emmaus House Executive Director Patrice Kuerschner said.
United for San Benito Executive Director Vicki Fortino said while in previous years the organization provided unrestricted grants to organizations focused on social services of families, health and children, this year they opted to focus on two.
“We did a needs assessment and they were the ones that rose to the top that were in most need at the time for our criteria of helping children and women,” she said. “We wanted to make the most impact.”
With Emmaus House annual budget of $264,000 and CASA’s of $350,000 and the loss of federal and state funding last year, the unexpected grants provided a lifeline they were desperately seeking.
Kuerschner said Emmaus House, an emergency shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence, lost about $70,000 of regular funding from various sources in 2025. To bridge the gap, the organization dipped into its endowment fund.
‘It’s a huge hit for us,” she said. “The lack of federal programs is definitely a deficit working against us right now. If we did not have these shelter services in San Benito County, families would have to be relocated to other areas. That’s taking children out of schools, perhaps taking women away from their job force locally.”
Kuerschner said the shelter serves about 90 families each year and has served 2,287 unduplicated families since it opened in October 2006.
The organization has also provided a 24-hour hotline since 2010 where a total of 5,230 callers have been provided with safety tips and resources.
CASA Executive Director Jessica Ravetz said the nonprofit has lost about two-thirds of its budget over the last two years from grants that “had been very consistent, very stable.”
She said the loss of funding means the organization needs to invest more time into finding new funding sources, instead of recruiting new volunteers and training them.
CASA advocates for youth involved in the welfare or justice system. Ravetz said that it involves between 20 and 30 children a year in the welfare system and between 35 and 40 in the justice system.
“It’s not a high number, but the complexity of the cases have gotten quite intense lately,” she said.
Ravetz said the donations it receives for its “bare bones budget” pay for staffing, rent and training.
“The importance of maintaining a CASA in San Benito County is that most likely the youth return to San Benito County because that’s their home,” she said. “So you want to maintain those connections to the community when they are sent out.”
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