Gratitude and Gratefulness

These times are challenging and yet gratitude shifts everything. Because of your generosity, United Way is able to help 2 out of 3 people by funding direct services at agencies and to impact our entire community through our impact work. While circumstances beyond are control are sometimes more difficult than others, we can take care of our community…together. This year, we’re doing just that.

Thank you.

This year, our free income tax preparation site filed more than 1,500 state and federal tax returns bringing back more than $1 million for people to help themselves! These are earned tax credits and help people pay bills, figure out transportation, and even buy homes! This is all done with 26 volunteers and you could help too! Tax season is coming and there’s a training and test you have to take to be certified by the IRS. Taxes can be scary and the kindness and comfort we offer others is life changing more for us than them! Email Anna to volunteer.

Our Youth Opportunities Committee launched and we’re learning about how and where we can have the greatest impact. Removing barriers is still the answer it seems. We’ve launched a cool new e-zine for young people called Young Creatives and we share it with schools and volunteers. Email Leah to get a copy just for you to share!

We are continuing our work and expanding it due to transportation barriers with more travel trainings, updating the transportation matrix and more. We are growing our wheelchair charging station locations too! We’re the only community in the country to have a free wheelchair charging station program countywide. To get a charger or learn more about our transportation efforts, contact Dalia.

HOPE Chest is our emergency fund, and we work hard to reduce toxic stress in the lives of families and individuals. We help on a referral basis from case managers or social workers, and it pays the bill directly. We get requests from many community partners, and we can turn around requests very quickly, using a day or two. For more information on HOPE Chest, contact Bethany. A reminder, we don’t deal with clients directly. People must be referred to us. This is a remarkable fund that changes people’s lives in the moment.

And this great newsletter and all of our giving and engagement work comes to you from Katie Stumpff! Katie’s here to help with your giving choices, engagement opportunities and to listen to your wishes about your philanthropy. There’s a place for you at United Way and Katie is great at making that happen. To connect to Katie, email her at Katie.

Debi Jensen is our longtime office manager and can help schedule our building for your meetings or gatherings, creates the lovely cards we send to our volunteers, does all the reminding to us and to you. To be in touch with Debi, email her at Debi.

These are challenging times and, in fact, community is what always pulls us through.  We’re so grateful to each and every one of you! Wishing you a most joyous holiday season.