The United Way of Santa Rosa, (UWSR), 2014 Campaign had a powerful start with community minded corporations like Publix, Gulf Power, Target, Taminco, International Paper, Wal-Mart, and others currently pledging renewed support for UWSR. United Way Santa Rosa is a 57 year-old community impact organization focusing on education, health, and income stability for primarily working families with an additional focus on special populations like first time homeless.
Kyle Holley, development director for UWSR said campaign dollars are collected and leveraged by local charities to pull into the local area additional state and federal dollars. Local United Way dollars are critical match dollars for area charities which receive them, said Holley. In 2013, the United Way of Santa Rosa County saw its cash distributions to local charities become multiplied 6.24 times, creating the basis for measuring the total impact of the campaign.
Holley said 36 percent of the 2013 investment was into area health initiatives, 23 percent in education, and 41 percent in stabilizing household incomes through financial assistance and household budget counseling. Additionally, the United Way Santa Rosa reports it was able to deploy an additional $156,000.00 dollars toward reducing the local homeless crisis. “We intend to continue refining our community impact focus to mark and measure change in critical areas of our community. We need to make sure, as a community, we know what we are doing and where we are going,” said Holley.
“At the edge of convention is where we find invention,” he continues, “We need everybody looking at what we can do locally to remove barriers for growth at the lowest cost. We will always have unemployment. UWSR focuses on those who are unemployed who want a job and those who are underemployed. Increasing skills costs money. Investment can’t be made until procurement of additional jobs comes along.
UWSR doesn’t exist just to help entitlement people. It doesn’t receive entitlement money. We don’t apply for it and we don’t handle it,” said Holley. He said UWSR goals are to improve the lives of local working citizens whose incomes cannot meet daily needs. He stresses the fact Santa Rosa citizens and officials need to “beg for jobs to come here,” he said. Holley said there is no way to express the need within this county.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: United Way Santa Rosa begins 2014 campaign