Dec. 1 is a big day for nonprofit organizations across the United States and the rest of the world. The day is dubbed Giving Tuesday, which was created in 2012, and urges people to give back in a variety of ways.
You may see many posts about it across social media, on news websites, and maybe even on the evening news or in the newspaper. It’s all about doing good for your community in whatever way you can: Donating dollars to the cause of your choice, volunteering your time, advocating for an organization or even assisting an agency in need.
While you’ve probably seen the United Way of Monongalia and Preston Counties’ 2021 Campaign advertised in a variety of ways throughout this community, we always like to ramp things up a little for this special day.
And it’s especially important this year, as so many families and individuals are struggling with the COVID-19 fallout. In fact, we’re serving more people than we ever have at the United Way, and many of them have likely never needed help from this organization before. That’s because the pandemic has impacted this community in many difficult ways, as it has many other areas. And United Ways across our state are definitely seeing those effects.
But just because something is new and scary doesn’t mean we can’t try to help.
The United Way of Mon and Preston Counties has been responding to local needs and society’s most pressing problems for more than 80 years. COVID-19 is a new challenge for us, but we’re up to it. United Way was built for this. But we need your continued support.
We’ve been working through the pandemic to meet the needs of our community.
We are serving 13,000 people each month through the Helpful Harvest Food Program, and we’ve leveraged $441,010 in produce and USDA Farmers to Families Food Boxes to the program.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has continued to mail books throughout the pandemic. We have 2,186 children currently enrolled in the free books-by-mail program in Mon County, and 718 have already graduated from it.
We’ve distributed more than 3,000 masks in our community to agencies and organizations in desperate need.
We’ve given out $88,000 to agencies in the community through our COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund.
Just this week, we helped distribute Thanksgiving meals to about 1,000 families in need across Mon County, with the help of our partner agencies, Pantry Plus More and Preston County Workshop, and a generous grant from the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust.
And next week, we’ll be working at the Mountaineer Food Bank’s Mobile Food Pantry, along with Food for Preston, in Kingwood, and then following that up with our food distribution in Mon County as part of the 39th Annual Holiday Toy and Food Distribution.
As you can see, United Way hasn’t taken a back seat when it comes to pandemic response.
But this fight is far from over. As we enter the colder months, we know this pandemic will be long lasting, and funding will be needed to continue to serve the most vulnerable in our communities.
We ask that on Giving Tuesday, you help us do just that. Giving to the United Way is the most powerful way to give to your community; your donation multiplies when combined with others and then serves 43 programs at 24 agencies in our community, as well as United Way impact programs such as Helpful Harvest Food Program and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
Your donation stays right here, where we can continue to reimagine and rebuild this community. Thank you so much for your gift! We could not do this work without your continued support.
Donate at unitedwaympc.org/give or text NOW2021 to 41444.
