In the News
Sept. 22, 2011 –
United Way Takes Aim at $3.2 Million Goal
Local media partners, including the EMC’s Hollie Pratt-Campbell, helped to announce this year’s campaign goal of $3.2 million.
EMC News – It should come as no surprise that at its annual kickoff breakfast last week the United Way announced yet another record-breaking campaign goal.
Campaign Chair Les Herr announced, among a room of more than 600 supporters and volunteers at the Ambassador Conference Resort, that this year the organization’s fall fundraising campaign target is $3.2 million. This represents a $200,000 increase over last year’s goal.
At the campaign launch, Herr issued a challenge to each and every United Way volunteer: to tell the full story of the United Wayhow it is changing lives and building a stronger community here in the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington region.
Last year, over 74,000 people in the region received assistance from United Way funded services.
John Dickson is one of the people who has benefitted from the United Way, through the United Way funded agency Kingston Home Base Housing.
After years of travelling across the world as a self-described homeless or under housed individual, Dickson decided to lay down roots in the City of Kingston.
“I applied for rent geared to income, which is one way that a person like me can actually get a chance at having a home again…When I went to apply for that, I wasn’t seeking a home, I had given up on any possibility of anything like that. I anticipated a shared living situation that would be colourful at the best of times and maddening at the worst of times. And for a little while, after my approval, I ended up in a situation that wasn’t ideal for me.”
However, in time, Dickson, with the help of Home Base Housing, was able to find a more ideal living environment, and today he has a home to call his own.
“For a person like me this United Way logo is in every aspect of my life…I want to say a little something about that logo and this idea of change starts here…it comes down to the individual person on the street who is that hand, that one hand and all of the change that that one hand can pull out of its pocket, and the power of that to then form a shield, a cover and a protection over one person. And if you do one thing to save one living thing you have saved all living things, and I truly, profoundly believe this. I believe this because…I have a home now because somebody wanted to go out on a limb for me and give me a chance when they didn’t have to.”
It is stories like Dickson’s that have sold so many people on the benefits of giving to the United Way, but Herr mentioned that there is still work to do to sell the rest of the community on the organization.
He revealed that out of the 60,000 people that work in Kingston, the United Way touches 38,000 through its annual campaign. Of those 38,000, approximately 8,000 make donations to the organization, as well as 1,000 retired workers.
“That’s a participation rate of around 24 per cent out of our community…I guess I always ask myself, why would it be so low given the opportunity to change lives and build communities? Just imagine what we could achieve if everyone participated just a little bit.”
He said that just a little of each person’s charitable budgets would go a long way to helping change the lives of so many people here in Kingston.
“So let’s see if we can’t get Kingston and area folks to put the United Way first on their charitable dance card, and help the United Way and all of the agencies that are changing lives and building a strong, more caring, and more equitable community each and every day.”
Source: EMC News, Kristen Coughlar
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