Live United: Online giving event to replace conventional Day of Caring amid COVID-19

A little over a year ago, I began working as executive director of the Centre County United Way. Since then, I have had the privilege of meeting devoted supporters and volunteers who make this county a great place to live.

Local businesses, individuals and friends at Penn State work all year to raise funds and volunteer their time to support our community. By working together, we are providing individuals and families with support for food, utilities, shelter, counseling, child care, medical care and a long list of vital services that make a vast safety net for our community.

Each year, roughly 1 in 4 Centre County residents use a program or service that is funded by Centre County United Way. These programs and services are coordinated by 28 nonprofits that are partner agencies of CCUW.

Living in the COVID-19 era has changed so many things about our lives, but our mission remains the same. We prioritize needs and mobilize human and financial resources to positively impact the education, financial stability, and physical and emotional health of our neighbors. Although we are experiencing a pandemic, we still are fulfilling our commitment to fund our partner agency programs.

I am proud that every dollar we spend has a meaningful impact on the community. To be a partner agency, a nonprofit program cannot provide duplicate services. Every year, programs must go through a rigorous review process and demonstrate outcomes to show they are efficient users of our donors’ money and that they provide an essential service that would otherwise be unavailable.

Twenty-seven percent of Centre County households are a paycheck away from a financial crisis. Because their incomes are above the federal poverty level, they do not benefit from most federal assistance programs. These are our neighbors who work hard at their jobs but still cannot afford necessities such as housing, transportation and child care. The pandemic has not only increased these numbers but put those at risk closer to a crisis than ever before.

CCUW was fortunate to receive the generosity of The Hamer Foundation’s Community Disaster Fund. Since the pandemic hit Centre County, nearly $45,000 has been disbursed to help 52 people affected by the economic effects of COVID-19 to avoid a financial crisis.

In the interest of public health, CCUW and our partner agencies have canceled major fundraisers, including a community favorite, Trash to Treasure. We continue to seek innovative ways to make up for the lost revenue. For example, we were fortunate to have volunteers from Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications collaborate with us to hold a Facebook Live concert for the community in April that raised $18,000.

We have always looked forward to our annual Day of Caring, where more than a thousand volunteers are matched with nonprofits that need help accomplishing projects such as painting and landscaping. In an especially generous case, a new 4,000-square-foot roof was put on a Strawberry Fields residential home by R.H. Marcon, free of charge.

While we will not be able to hold a conventional Day of Caring because of the risks from the pandemic, we are excited to announce an online giving day in place of the Oct. 1 event.

The Day of Caring, powered by PNC, will be a special call for the community to support our partner agencies during this difficult time. More details to come. Our aim, as always, will be to help the agencies who are so essential to providing much-needed services to our community.

I am looking forward to what I know will be a tremendous community response to those in need.

This story was originally published August 16, 2020 at 8:00 AM.