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United Way hosts annual sale in Bancroft

May 5, 2015

By Sara Gottardi
On the bright and nippy morning of Saturday, April 25 United Way was open to the public and revelled in helping in supporting the community of Bancroft. Everybody was united in the mutual sense to come together and make a difference in the community as well as displaying the changes in and for the world and society in a general aspect.
Retired is the view of seeing only one way, as now being brought to peoples attention is the consideration of everybody being equals opposed to excluding parts of people and society of certain statures in whether or in regards to materialistic wealth and daily hardships of everybody’s lives. United Way believes in everyone being deserving of equal-same amounts of rights and comforts in society.
United Way is an organization that believes and stands firmly by three main pillars that (like their funds) funnel into other sub genres of issues people are dealing with in their everyday lives and works to help them instead of reduce them. The three main standing pillars go by: Helping Kids Be All They Can Be, Building Healthy People and Strong Communities, and Helping People Move From Poverty to Possibilities.
“United Way have evolved into a community impact organization,” Amy Watkins says as “United Way funds 45 agencies and almost 70 programs throughout Hastings and Prince Edward County,” and they “measure how effective their programs are, the impact that they’re having on the community” to better cater to what the community is in need and deserving of rather just blindly organizing.
Amy says, “we’re just in the initial stages” and “it’s evolving over the next year but certainly we will be tracking data to show the effectiveness as there are lots of positive things happening in our communities and there’s also some trends we’re noticing that we want to improve and impact on such as, food, security, poverty rates and those types of things.”
“As a funder, agencies apply for funding and we invest that money back into those agencies and back into the community. Fundraisers like this and sales help to raise those funds,” Amy said.
This sale is unique in the fact that volunteers come from the agencies United Way supports in fundraisers held yearly. With other community sales, staff of other agencies come together also and are able to work towards a common cause for benefits in both organizations and funds to funnel back into local communities through fundraising initiatives.
“While we have generous donors in the community and the workplaces such as Proctor and Gamble who help us to support this initiative, we also do embark on fundraising efforts to reach our goals, our fundraising goals,” Amy said.
There are United Ways all around the world and being a part of United Way of Canada they provide assistance and support through Hastings and Prince Edward County. United Way feels “fortunate to be a part of a movement so collaborative and supportive,” Amy says. Many communities have fundraisers, but also “we invest those funds into the community and we’re trying to lead the change to the social fabric of Hastings and Prince Edward County,” Amy said. They want to change how people perceive the world around themselves and how to create a better(ing) living situation for everybody regardless age, gender, status, and the places we live.
United Way works in conjunction with tremendous agencies like North Hastings Community Trust, and Bancroft North Hastings Community Covert. Amy says, “Bancroft and North Hastings is wonderful”. They also support Bancroft’s Youth In Action, North Hastings Children Services, and Maggie’s Resource Centre.
United Way works towards but isn’t limited to improving areas in communities such as Children’s Services and Community Transit for people that are in need of these services but are subjected to tremendous difficulties due to their status according to a one-sided society. A big part of United Way is to break the barrier of inequality and to make others aware and able to contribute no matter stature as well as to benefit from it’s widespread services.

         

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