United Way Perth-Huron celebrated the end of their most recent fundraising campaign at their annual Spirit of Community ceremony in Stratford last week.
Executive Director Ryan Erb says even though they didn't hit their ambitious goal for this year, a new fundraising record was established of $2.345 million.
"We stand on the fact that this is an incredible achievement and we recognize we didn't raise as much money as we were hoping for and there's some things that we can't do. We would like to have provided more funding to organizations in our community, as they face their own challenges trying to provide services in a world where there's more demand and their costs are increasing. But, we still were able to do substantially well," Erb enthused.
Erb says all the money will go toward local service organizations, with a focus this year on housing, homelessness and poverty reduction.
"There are other things in the scheme of that but they all connect those two social issues and so we use relationships with our funded partners to have organizations providing service and delivery. So there's about 40 programs and services that are funded through United Way and, of course, we are advocating for change at the provincial and federal levels. We're also doing research locally here and offering some programming supports ourselves, umbrella things like the 211 service," added Erb.
Erb says getting to celebrate the new fundraising record achievement at their annual Spirit of Community ceremony in Stratford is always very special.
"We get to gether with almost 300 of our closest friends. Our supporters, our donors, people who volunteer with the organization, organizations that we fund and staff, of course. So all of us really get to celebrate that night and say 'Wow, we did a lot this last year together helping so many people', and it's the powerful stories of people in the community that makes that evening really amazing," Erb noted.
Those stories this year included first-hand community accounts of homelessness and housing challenges.
"We had a person who talked about their story that experienced homelessness, a youth in our community. We had a senior citizen who was reno-victed and they told their story. We also had a person who experienced homelessness that's actually working for one of our organizations, and so, those were the powerful moments of the evening. A few tears, of course, but then a lot of laughter and celebration together," said Erb.
Though this latest campaign is over, Erb points out that the work is never done, and United Way is always looking for help and volunteers.
"Perhaps you wanna volunteer with our organization or others. You can always reach out to us for information. You can also, of course, donate at any time. The day after we finish one campaign, we start the next. So, we're right at it again at the end of our fiscal year, March 31. So April 1, we turn on the tap and it's right away, raising money for next year for all the good things that we do," Erb concluded.
The outgoing Campaign Co-Chairs, Rob and Leslie Edney, were honoured at the ceremony last week and the newest ones, John Wolfe and Kristin Sainsbury, were unveiled, as well.
To donate to, or learn more about United Way's local programming and services, visit PerthHuron.UnitedWay.ca. You can also call the totally free, 24/7 211 service to connect to many different local organizations and support systems.