Campaign Update

The United Way of Mid & South Jefferson County officially kicked off the 2011-2012 Campaign Wednesday, August 31, with a breakfast buffet, sponsored by Valero.

Set at $1.2 million, the 2011-2012 campaign goal is the same as last years.  "The United Way today is more important than it has ever been," Steve Paterson, 2011-2012 Campaign Chair said when he addressed the crowd via video.   "I hope you will join me in helping to reach out to the community.  Let's make this a banner year."

Several of the current agencies have expressed concern with governmental budget cuts drastically affecting local programming, and have reached out to the United Way.  Because of those situations and the continually increasing demands of services on agencies, the United Way of Mid & South Jefferson County is expecting an increase in funding requests across the three focus areas:  Education, Health and Income.

The official 2011-2012 United Way campaign runs through the end of November.  During that time volunteers approach local industry and the business community to provide employees opportunity to make a monetary donation to the drive.  This year many companies are getting a later start and will continue campaigns beyond the month of November.  They are holding events to encourage and increase participation in the United Way annual campaign.  Valero held their annual Chili & Gumbo cook-off inviting the United Way director, a volunteer, and an agency executive to serve as guest judges.  BASF held a hamburger event for their employees, and other events vary from popcorn meet and greets, to lunch with a United Way Question and Answer time.

With the 2011-2012 campaign underway and many of the individual campaigns reporting in, the current total raised is $955,138.55 or 79.6% of the goal!