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| Martha Maksym, Director of United Way of Chittenden County speaking at the Hometown Heroes Awards and Campaign Kick-off in September |
Greetings!
It’s fall in Vermont, and the United Way of Chittenden County is conducting our annual Live United community campaign. Once again, we are coming to you, our most loyal and generous donors, to ask you to invest with us to improve people’s lives.
The resources we mobilize through this important effort are invested strategically in programs and initiatives in Chittenden County that address our priority areas of focus: Education, Income, and Health. We believe these are the building blocks toward a better future for everyone; a good education that will position a person for a stable future with enough income to meet needs, and good health to enjoy all this beautiful community has to offer. It’s what we all want for ourselves and our children.
In this we all share a common vision.
We commit to achieving a social return on your investment in this portfolio of programs and initiatives by asking every recipient of our funding the following questions:
• How much are you doing?
• How well are you doing it?
• Is anyone better off as a result of participating?
This is how we determine the impact of the investments we make, both for program participants, and for the community as a whole.
Our call to action is GIVE, ADVOCATE, VOLUNTEER, and we invite you to join us. For many of us, Chittenden County is the ideal place to live, raise a family, operate our businesses and give back. But that is not the experience for all our neighbors, employees, family members and friends. The economic downturn that continues to challenge our state and federal budgets is also impacting the human service sector’s capacity to respond to growing requests for assistance. So that defines our work -- United Way of Chittenden County’s work in partnership with you -- to mobilize the WHOLE community to improve people’s lives.
This annual community campaign is BY our community FOR our community. It’s GIVING LOCAL. And it makes a difference. Please join us and make your pledge to support your neighbors, your friends, and your own family. None of us knows when we will need the services of the many programs we support. It is just good “social insurance.”
Thanks
Martha Maksym
Executive Director
United Way of Chittenden County
