In the News
September 11, 2012 –
United Way Goal: $3.35M
Kingston and area residents and businesses are being asked to dig a little deeper into their pockets this year.
But it’s for a good cause, as the United Way of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington announced yet another increase in its annual fundraising goal.
Lloyd Fleming, this year’s campaign chair, announced a goal of $3.35 million for this year’s campaign during the group’s kick-off breakfast with about 600 volunteers and representatives of member agencies in attendance at the Ambassador Conference Resort Tuesday morning.
The amount is an increase of $150,000 from last year’s goal, which was successfully reached.
In fact, the United Way is on a 13-year streak of surpassed fundraising goals.
Most of the money raised will come from workplace donations and special events.
Fleming, a BMO Bank of Montreal vice-president, said people know where their money is going when they donate to the United Way.
“The United Way is a recognized, trusted and respected organization that ensures the programs and services of the agencies they fund are appropriately validated through the annual volunteer review process,” he said.
Even though area public and private workplaces are facing uncertainty Fleming is confident the goal can be reached because there is such a need.
“At the same time, we know the needs of our agencies has increased in these challenging and uncertain times,” Fleming said.
“We believe we’ve balanced the increasing needs with our agencies with the realties in our workplaces to arrive at this campaign goal.”
Fleming said the way to reach the goal this year is to increase the participation rate among people in the workplace.
“That’s our No. 1 focus this year: to try to raise the dollars that need to be raised. It’s fairly straightforward. More donors means more dollars to support the critical work of these member agencies.”
About 2,000 volunteers over the next 11 weeks will work toward the fundraising goal.
The local United Way funded 63 agencies in 2011, 88% of the funds raised went to the agencies with 12% going to administration and fundraising-related costs.
One of the agencies the United Way is funding is Pathways to Education. Johnny Mariona, a 16-year-old Grade 10 student at Kingston Collegiate spoke to the gathering about his experiences with the agency.
After the breakfast, he said the United Way’s funding of Pathways to Education has helped him immensely.
“It helped me a lot. Whenever I had trouble with work, they helped me there. They’re always there for me,” he said.
Mariona said that before joining Pathways, he had trouble in school and found the experience intimidating. He had issues focussing on his work, which resulted in incomplete and/or late assignments and low grades.
But once he was involved in Pathways, his work ethic and study habits improved.
“I go to a tutor and they help me,” he added.
Mariona is now getting As and Bs in many courses and is making plans for his future.
“I want to go to college or university to study music and singing.”
The local program at Pathways helps about 100 students in grades 9 to 11 in the Rideau Heights and Inner Harbour area, said Roger Romero, a student parent support worker.
“The program is in our second year and it’s going well right now. All the students are very motivated,” he explained.
“They are inspiring for everybody. They can overcome challenges and actually move on and grow up to be great people.
“We’ll have our first graduating class in 2014. But we’re seeing success already as a lot of students are getting As and Bs in their classes, and they’ve never seen this kind of success before, so it’s really working.”
The students come for tutoring 90 minutes twice a week and have mentoring sessions for two hours every two weeks after school.
The agency is located at 263 Weller Ave., Unit 6.
The program also provides meal tickets, mentors and social activities for students.
The breakfast crowd also heard from a woman who was helped by the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre. The now 50-year-old woman was repeatedly raped by her father when she was a child, which led her into a life of drug abuse and living on welfare. She lost her job and her family.
It took her 14 years after the death of her father to come forward with her story.
But with the help of the centre, she is now drug-free, reunited with her family and now a mother and grandmother.
“I’m so pleased to say I’ve been clean for four and a half years,” she said to thunderous applause.
“But I should applaud you,” she said to the United Way audience of fundraisers and agency workers. “Without your guidance, how could I’ve gotten there.”
The campaign will wrap up on Nov. 29.
Source: Ian MacAlpine, Kingston Whig-Standard
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