Appleton - Year-end community contributions, including a challenge grant from the J. J. Keller Foundation, Inc. that yielded $50,000, helped the Emergency Shelter of the Fox Valley enter 2008 in the black.

Debra Cronmiller, the shelter's executive director, said the shelter was able to pay off its $149,000 credit debt and begin the new year with an estimated $70,000 in reserve funds above and beyond the shelter's restricted funds.

"In the last two years, we've turned our position around from being in debt at the beginning of the year ...," Cronmiller said Thursday.

The shelter operates annually on a budget of about $1.2 million. Cronmiller estimates the shelter served more than 1,800 people last year who either were homeless or were at risk of becoming homeless.

Cronmiller said she was surprised when 181 new donors raised more than $26,000 in about five weeks to fulfill J. J. Keller Foundation's $25,000 challenge grant. The foundation, which provided a dollar-for-dollar match up to $25,000, issued a June 1 deadline.

Mary Harp-Jirschele, the foundation's executive director, said the fulfillment of the challenge grant in such a short time and over the holidays was an "amazing" accomplishment.

"I think the really exciting part for us is the fact that these were all new donors," Harp-Jirschele said. "What that did was get a whole new group of supporters who understand the plight of homeless people."

Other major donors were Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation, which gave $70,000 along with $15,000 for an endowment fund; and the Bemis Foundation, which gave $40,000.

"How the contributions were coming in, it was slower than usual, but in the last week right between Christmas and New Year's we received a lot of gifts," Cronmiller said.