United Way aiming for $1.85M campaign goal
The United Way of Peterborough and District is counting on love, energy and maybe even a little luck as the agency unveiled its campaign goal of $1.85 million at the annual kickoff breakfast on Wednesday morning at the Evinrude Centre.
The campaign is the organization’s 77th. Organizers hope double-sevens prove lucky in providing needed support to the group’s priority areas: moving people from poverty to possibility and creating healthy and strong communities.
“There are so many things we need to do to make our community better,” Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith said, emphasizing the positive work United Way does on a local level.
“Please pull out your wallets, please pull out your chequebooks. It makes such a difference in our community.”
Karen Wilson, chairwoman of United Way’s board of directors, spoke passionately about the range of supports United Way’s campaign helps fund, including support to those aging at home, facing poverty or addiction, or those living with violence.
“All kinds of things happen to every single one of us,” Wilson said, noting there is typically no one solution to struggles facing members of the community.
She added 60,000 people have benefited from services United Way helps provide, in one way or another.
This year United Way is also asking supporters to spread the word on social media by using the hashtags #LocalLove, #ChangeALife and #WeArePossibility in an effort to keep the campaign trending.
“It’s such a tremendous way to tell some of our stories,” master of ceremonies Stuart Harrison, president and CEO of the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, told those in the audience.
This year’s campaign chairwoman, Megan Murphy, took the podium while a group of workers from the John Howard Society made their way through the crowd dressed as zombies, while Murphy spoke into the microphone that “this is not a drill.”
The distraction provided an opportunity to promote the organization’s Zombie Outbreak Escape Maze taking place on Oct. 25 and 26, but also seemed to hint at the energy United Way says it will employ this year to reach its goal.
Those at the breakfast also got a sneak peak at another of Murphy’s projects for United Way called 50 People 1 Peterborough, where 50 people are asked the same question on video. The question, dealing with worry, solicits responses from people of different ages and walks of life. The powerful footage features responses ranging from worry about not having enough fun, to worry about losing a pet, to worry about loss of loved ones to worry about not having enough money to make ends meet.
NOTE: View the 50 People 1 Peterborough video at www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com. To learn more about this year’s campaign, visit www.uwpeterborough.ca.