Vashon Community Care is looking to raise $300,000 by year’s end and has recently launched a campaign to bring in the needed funds.

Verna Everitt, the executive director of the Vashon Community Care Foundation,  is leading the effort, which she is calling At Home on Vashon.

“My message to the community is imagine if Vashon Community Care (VCC) was not here,” she said. “So many residents have lived here all their lives, and they reached this time in their life when they need care.”

Raising funds at VCC is a continual effort, and many islanders are likely familiar with the challenges the center faces as a nonprofit, community-owned facility.

At the heart of the financial struggle, Everitt said, is that the reimbursement rate  of Medicaid, which pays medical costs for people with limited income and resources,  has been stagnant since 2007, while costs have risen.

Now at VCC, Medicaid covers just 49 percent of the cost of care for residents in assisted living and 70 percent in the skilled nursing facility, Everitt said. The agency cannot bill for the balance of the costs, but must cover the unmet expenses in other ways.

Typically, the center has about a 50-50 split in  the percent of center residents who pay privately and those who are covered through Medicaid, she said. For both philosophical and pragmatic reasons, the center remains committed to serving those who have exhausted their means while living there.

“Even if we could only accept private pay, we would collapse given the demographics of the island,” she said. “We need those Medicaid patients as much as they need us. … Together all of run this five-star institution.

While the center hopes to raise  $500,000 this year, the budget deficit is actually over $1 million, said Truman O’Brien, the foundation president. Income from the center’s rehabilitation program and careful management of the budget has cut that figure in half, he added.

So far this year, Everitt said, they have raised $200,000 and are aiming to bring in the remaining $300,000 in the coming months.

“People on the island have been very, very generous,” O’Brien said, noting he is optimistic the community will step forward again.

In addition to raising funds from the community, Everitt said she is trying to find grant money, but there is little available. The center’s largest supporter, she noted, is Granny’s Attic, which provided close to $70,000 last year. Thriftway is also generous, she added, providing $500 from tip jars every month.

O’Brien likens the situation at VCC to the Vashon schools, with a foundation that raises funds because of insufficient government funding. Barring an unexpected change at that level, VCC will look to the community — and beyond — to house the island’s elders.

‘We are always going to raise money,” he said.