Meeting Local needs

Necessity is the mother of invention, so when local school districts shuttered their facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, United Way of Abilene reimagined solutions for the community. That included a plan for easing the child care burden faced by essential workers shouldering the brunt of the public health crisis.

By now, we know: masks matter, especially in schools. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cloth masks in schools can help slow the spread of the coronavirus, along with other mitigation strategies like hand-washing, social distancing, and regular cleansing and disinfecting of frequently-touched surfaces in schools and buses.

In Colombia, only 44% of children graduate grade school. That undermines their success in work and life. That's why United Way Colombia has worked to support learning for children, parents and teachers, starting in the early school years.

UN Volunteers has made it easy to get involved and spread this year’s IVD theme, “Volunteer Now for Our Common Future.”

Finding ways to leverage volunteer support for individuals in need during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented serious challenges to non-profit organizations as well as many companies, who give back to their communities in part through employee volunteering. The newly released Leadership for Volunteering: The COVID-19 Experience shares information about not only the challenges but also the solutions and innovations that leaders of volunteering organizations delivered to people in need as they safely mobilized volunteers.

United Ways offer a variety of family volunteer projects, like Heart of Florida United Way’s annual Thanksgiving Project.