Saturday, May 9th is the annual National Letter Carrier’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive. Letter carriers throughout Sheboygan County will be collecting your food donations. Through the United Way of Sheboygan County, I have had the privilege to work with the Food for Tomorrow community impact focus area. In working with the Sheboygan County Food Bank and the ten pantries, who are members of the Food Bank, I have learned a great deal about food donations and needs.
Stephanie Leonhard had been an intern at United Way of Sheboygan County for the past six months. As she leaves us to move on to finishing her final weeks of school and entering into full-time employment, we thought we would give her the opportunity to express her thoughts on working within the nonprofit world. It was her first time working with a nonprofit and we think she learned much more than how to tend to administrative duties. – Sandy Leske, director of community development and marketing.
YOU ARE INVITED
THIS is National Volunteer Week. This week is about inspiring, recognizing and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in our community. It’s about demonstrating to the nation that by working together, we have the fortitude to meet our challenges and accomplish our goals.
Tom is passionate about helping kids. He cares so much that he gives a large amount of money to a local youth agency. But at a presentation at his work place, he learns about donating to United Way. At first, Tom wonders, “Why should I give to the United Way when I can give directly to my favorite agency?” But a co-worker explains that United Way has the unique ability to support a diverse network of services that ALL work together to help children succeed. Often times, when people need help, they face multiple issues in order to improve their quality of life. Kids need safe housing, afterschool programs, adequate nutrition and (perhaps) counseling. United Way utilizes Tom’s donation so that it can address the entire well-being of people in Sheboygan County.
The need is great. Our affiliate agencies have submitted program funding applications for the 2015-16 year. Our planning & allocations committee volunteers have reviewed all the applications and are meeting now to make recommendations to our board of directors. Typically, and this year is no exception, the requests are more than United Way is able to award.
www.uwofsc.org/volunteer[http://www.uwofsc.org/volunteer]. Yes – that’s all it takes to be connected to hundreds of volunteer opportunities in Sheboygan County. Search the opportunities, find the right one for you and click the yellow button that says “Respond to Need.” It’s that easy.
United Way of Sheboygan County, the Sheboygan Area School District and Random Lake School District have issued a Request for Information/Request for Proposal (RFI/RFP) to organizations interested in developing the School-Based Mental Health Access Project (Providing Access to Healing – PATH).
Imagine for a moment what our community would look like 18 years from now if, today, we joined together and made a commitment to ensure that every child is ‘born learning’.
On March 21, 2014, over 300 people participated in a Community Conversation about Mental Health and Alcohol & Drug Abuse. Attendees shared stories, expressed their appreciation for services and programs and identified that more work needed to be done to address three major areas: Access, Education and Coordination.