Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
United Way of SCC names new directors
United Way of Southern Chester County has announced new funding as well as new directors.
KENNETT SQUARE » This year’s Annual Meeting for United Way of Southern Chester County, held May 16, was a cause for celebration. A year ago, United Way was presented with a challenge from an anonymous donor. A matching grant of $100,000 was offered to United Way of Southern Chester County if they could grow their Leadership Donor category, which is made up of people who make an annual gift of at least $1,000, with all new leadership gifts being fully matched. Current leadership donors who increased their gifts could also have those increases matched through the matching challenge grant. Board President John Moriarty revealed that, through hard work and an extremely generous community, United Way was able to gain 47 new leadership donors. Existing
leadership donors pledged an additional $43,000. These gifts allowed United Way to receive the full match.
A total of $1.175 million dollars has been raised to date in the 2017 – 2018 campaign year with a total of 408 new donors across all categories combined.
Twenty-six local programs at 18 nonprofit agencies serving people with needs in southern Chester County will receive $840,000 in funding through allocation grants. The various funding amounts were determined by 55 community volunteers sitting on allocation panels in March. These allocation grants are allocated to programs addressing three main areas of need: Crisis Intervention, Transitioning to Independence through Education, and Promoting Stability and Sustainability.
Carrie Freeman, United Way of Southern Chester County CEO, announced that $40,000 would put into the Unmet Needs Fund. This is a fund to aid in the formation of programs to address unmet needs in our community. Several years ago, there was no shelter for homeless families, and this fund helped Family Promise of Southern Chester County get started. A growing unmet need is the dramatic increase in homelessness and the loss of low-income housing in southern Chester County. United Way will be prepared to fund programs emerging to address these unmet needs.
United Way of SCC also runs in-house programs: information & referral, mentoring agencies, promoting volunteerism, financial literacy/budgeting programs, and creates workshops for the public and nonprofits on various topics.
In addition to making the matching grant announcement and reviewing the fundraising efforts to date, United Way of Southern Chester County inducted five new board members and voted in new officers. The full slate of UWSCC Directors are: Jay Bass, Joelynn Berger, Rick Bond, Allison Brunovszky, Vince Cwietniewicz, Matt Decker, Joyce DeVoe, Yvonne Erickson, Adrienne Fornoff, Greg Friedman, Mary Kay Gaver, Karen Greig, David
Halm, Brian Keefer, Lisa Moore, John Moriarity, Jesse Noa, Dave Sentman, Abhijit Singh, Randy Stone, Liz Curtis Swain, Amy Trojanowski, and Kim Wallenhorst.
UWSCC serves the residents of four school districts: Avon Grove, Kennett, Oxford, and Unionville-Chadds Ford. Over 18,000 people received support from UWSCC-sponsored programs last year thanks to the generosity of the community.