The United Way of Santa Rosa County’s Day of Caring is upon us again. The 2014 Day of Caring marks the 10years United Way Santa Rosa offered this unique opportunity for companies, churches, military commands, and community service organizations to complete a meaningful service project for a Santa Rosa nonprofit agency or a local family who could use a helping hand.
There are so many benefits for uniting with our community on Day of Caring. Through involvement, teams are able to assist an agency or a neighbor with a project not typically completed for lack of money or manpower. Projects can include a facility work project, office help, yard work, or providing an activity such as a story time or a craft project.
This year’s Day of Caring is especially important for Santa Rosa County and its residents. Due to the April Flood bringing in an unprecedented 24 inches of rain to our county, many residents lost their homes, cars, boats, and other property, or suffered damage to their property. And here we are, five months later, and there are still residents trying to rebuild their homes in between work and daily life. United Way SRC wants to pay special attention to those residents who still need help with this Day of Caring. As reported earlier, United Way SRC has been working diligently to collect information for their Long Term Needs List, with which United Way is recruiting volunteer case managers.
Our goal this year is to match up those residents still needing help recovering from the flooding with caring groups of volunteers that can help with tearing down and putting up sheetrock, carpet, fix roofing issues and whatever other needs might be outstanding. United Way’s Day of Caring mobilizes the caring power of local teams of volunteers and matches them with people in our community that require that specific need they can provide.
Other projects for Day of Caring:
· United Way is aware of many elderly citizens living in Santa Rosa County unable to do certain things. We are deploying several groups of volunteers through the Council on Aging to help with cleanup, yard work, and other items.
· Volunteers who can help with some general maintenance and painting for local organizations.
Another part of this years’ Day of Caring is the Fall Festival by United Way SRC and Families First Network October 18 from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Milton Service Center, 6557 Caroline Street. This is the 4th year the festival will take place but the first year that United Way SRC is partnering with the Families First Network. This free to the public event will be filled with free food, games, and activities for the children and families, as well as a haunted house and costume contest. The festival will also provide information on community service providers who help with items such as daycare subsidies, safe sleep, and after school activities. Join us by becoming a participant or sponsor. We need community support for this event as proceeds will also provide low income families with Thanksgiving Dinner and Christmas gifts.
We at United Way of Santa Rosa County are excited about connecting volunteers with our community partners on our 10th Annual Day of Caring. Together, united, we can inspire hope and create opportunities for a better tomorrow.
Please contact Anja Machado at (850) 623-4507 or email volunteering@unitedwaysrc.org for more information and to sign up.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Day of Caring is October 18th