One of the United Way’s goals for membership was to let more
people know about our local United Way. We are small, but committed to
sustaining the work of non-profits in our community. Recent recipients of
funding include:
·
Shepherd’s House domestic violence shelter
·
Care Outreach food pantry
·
Truth food pantry
·
Sojourners Family Development foster care day
camp
·
The American Red Cross of Athens County, which serves Vinton County
·
Big Brothers/Big Sisters’ school mentoring
program in Vinton County
·
Vinton County Senior Citizens
·
RSVP Vinton County activities
·
Last summer’s summer feeding program
administered by Sojourners
UWVC’s board of directors is committed to investing its
money in Vinton County. We keep our overhead costs low (we don’t even have a
physical location), paying less than 3% of our earnings in administrative
costs. Our income arrives, for the most part, from outside the county. UWVC’s
main goal is to change the ratio of where the money comes from to reflect
stronger support from the county for the county. Toward that end, we have
successfully signed up many county employees and school employees to contribute
through payroll deduction.
The decisions about who will receive the $18,000 in
investments UWVC made this year involved many tough decisions for the board of
directors. They received nine excellently prepared proposals and worked with
thoughtful consideration. The investment committee works with Maslow’s Hierarchy in mind. Maslow devised a pyramid of human needs, with the most basic needs—food, shelter, clothing, safety—on the bottom. He said that unless the needs at the bottom are met, a person (or community) cannot move up to the next level (which might include education, meaningful work, and so on). UWVC invests mostly in that bottom level of Maslow’s pyramid. Our people need food and shelter and safety—especially the youngest and oldest among us. When we funded school mentoring last year, we were aware that for the first time in a long time we were investing in a “next level up” activity.