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Your Impact

Helping Kids Be All They Can Be 24,034 People served 6 Agencies 12 Programs
Building Strong & Healthy Communities ​ 10,259 People served ​ 15 Agencies ​ 27 Programs
Moving People from Poverty to Possibility 20,336 People served 10 Agencies 20 Programs

All funding is disbursed to programs and services that fit within United Way’s three Community Impact Areas.

Helping Kids Be All That They Can Be

Helping children and youth reach their fullest potential

Our goal is to ensure children and youth are valued and supported members of the community with opportunities and resources to help them reach their fullest potential.

Our programs and initiatives for children and youth help them reach their full potential.  We focus on:

We Focus On

Learning

  • Readiness to learn
  • Graduating high schoo

Connectedness

  • Empathy and positive relationships

Wellbeing

  • Resilience, coping skills, self-worth and confidence
  • Healthy decision making

Impact

  • nearly 18,000 students had nutritious snacks and meals at school
  • 325 kids were connected with a positive adult mentor
  • 130 youth learned skills such as communication, decision making and teamwork to help them with the challenges of adolescence
  • 520 kids and youth received intervention and counselling to overcome addictions

What We Know

  • Children are better able to learn when they are not hungry
  • High school graduation often breaks the cycle of poverty
  • Early intervention programs help the development of resilience and healthy coping skills and can prevent crisis
  • The #1 reason youth are homeless is due to family conflict, followed by addictions and mental health issues
  • Mentored children are twice as likely to believe that school is fun and that doing well academically is important
  • 355 high school students had tutoring and mentoring to help them graduate
  • 1,500 children and youth were engaged with social and recreational after-school activities
  • 695 young girls attended programs to increase their self-esteem and learn healthy behaviors

Your Local Love in Action

The Food Sharing Project is the organization which provides breakfast, lunch and hearty snacks to almost half of the students in KFL&A at 88 elementary and secondary schools. We deliver $12,000 worth of nutritious food every week of the school year and our programs are offered to all students, regardless of need, in an inclusive environment.

Based on the needs of their students and the availability of space and volunteers, schools choose from a variety of models, such as sit-down breakfasts, hearty snacks in classroom bins or grab-and-go lunches. Students come to school without enough food for a variety of reasons and educators tell us that when they can eat nutritious food at school, students are more engaged in their learning, can focus better on tasks and can have more positive social interactions throughout the day.

Students tell us that the fresh food they have at school makes a difference for them. Elementary students tell us it makes them happy and they ask their families for “apples, like we have at school.” They tell us that they aren’t sure why but “Math is easier after I’ve had something to eat.” Secondary students tell us the food they pick up helps them “just get to class.”

In Kingston, there are so many families who are working hard to make ends meet but the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables or dairy products makes them out of reach. When we can feed their children at school, they can pay the rent and the hydro and put gas in the car to get to work.

With our United Way funding, we go right to the grocery store or a local supplier and purchase the food that helps a student take advantage of everything school has to offer. You can be confident that your donation to the United Way stays here, in KFL&A and supports students in our community.

We believe it takes a community to feed a child and, in this community, we are grateful that the United Way is here to help us all live with a sense of hope, dignity and belonging.

 The Food Sharing Project

Building Strong and Healthy Communities

Supporting personal wellbeing and strengthening neighbourhoods

Our goal is to improve opportunities for people to access programs and supports that empower them to overcome barriers, build resilience, reduce isolation and be part of a caring, inclusive community.

Our programs and initiatives help individuals and families, supporting personal well-being and strengthening neighbourhoods in the following areas:

We Focus On

Connection

  • Access to community services and supports

Physical & Mental Wellbeing

  • Independent living for seniors & people with physical disabilities
  • Support for people with mental health issues

Safety

  • Safety from violence, abuse, neglect

Impact

  • 600 people who lost their hearing or vision learned coping skills to help them with daily living challenges
  • 1,892 people with a disability had help to connect with support services to help them live independently
  • 106 individuals who have served in the Canadian Forces and their family members had access to long-term counselling
  • over 1,600 people accessed community services by calling 211

What We Know

  • Having programs in their neighbourhood helps to reduce social isolation for people living in poverty
  • Supportive relationships and connections help people build self-sufficiency, resiliency, and decisions to make healthy choices
  • Supporting people with hearing or visual disabilities increases their ability to live independently and lead productive, healthy lives
  • 2,063 people had access to mental health supports and resources
  • 1,515 people improved social, relationship and coping skills by accessing affordable professional counselling
  • 351 women and their children left violent and abusive relationships by accessing safe emergency shelter, transitional housing and ongoing supports

Your Local Love in Action

With the support of the United Way the Sexual Assault Centre Kingston has had a year to be proud of. Through our counselling, psychotherapy, and accompaniment services we supported more than 390 survivors of sexual violence, offering more than 3800, hours of free services.

Unfortunately, the demand continues to outpace our resources. Since the beginning of #metoo in 2017 we have seen a doubling of service demands. As a result, our wait list has gone from an average of four to eight weeks over the last two years. In 2019 we continued to see evidence that Kingston has a problem with sexual violence – the city had the highest rates of police reported sexual violence in Ontario, and the highest rate of reported sexual violence against children and youth.

However, our Centre is privileged to work in partnership with the United Way. Through their support we are addressing this local problem with a local solution. The United Way supported the Centre to increase our staffing capacity to eliminate the wait list for survivors between the ages of 12 and 19. In 2019, more than 100 survivors supported through this program waited an average of three days to be connected with a counsellor after their intake session. This is the power of the United Way.

Sexual Assault Centre Kingston

Moving People from Poverty to Possibility

Meeting basic human needs and moving people out of poverty

Our goal is to help people engage in their community by strengthening neighbourhood revitalization efforts, reducing poverty, and improving access to affordable housing.

Our programs and initiatives meet basic human needs, move people out of poverty and focus on:

We Focus On

Housing Stability

  • Access to emergency shelter
  • Access to safe, affordable housing
  • Resources and supports to maintain safe and stable housing

Food Security

  • Access to affordable and nutritious food

Financial Security

  • Financial security
  • Meaningful, stable employment

Impact

  • over 15,200 people benefitted from reclaimed fresh produce and prepared meals to improve their access to healthy food
  • over 41,000 meals are served each year by local soup kitchens
  • over 1,000 children had warm boots for the winter
  • 1,941 parents struggling with managing on a low income and their children participated in prenatal, infant, and parenting groups

What We Know

  • Finding and maintaining safe, affordable housing are basic needs and require supports to avoid situations and conditions that lead to housing instability
  • People need access to nutritious food to meet their basic needs and decrease life disruptions from hunger
  • Helping people to become financially stable and offering supports to avoid financial crisis can prevent chronic poverty, precarious housing and food insecurity
  • 1,164 people at risk of eviction received support, advocacy, and legal aid to remain housed
  • 1,115 children and youth started the school year with school supplies and backpacks
  • 398 job seekers with low incomes were outfitted in professional clothes and received training and supports to help them find employment

Your Local Love in Action

The Kingston Youth Shelter provides emergency shelter, transitional housing, & family support for homeless youth ages 16-24 in Kingston.

The shelter opened in 1999 following an increase in homeless youth on the streets of Kingston. They had no place to go because all the shelters in the city wouldn’t take in anyone under the age of 18. The shelter started out as a band-aid and didn’t have a lot of resources or money and had just 8 beds.

It was a struggle for a number of years, but then United Way came in and adopted us. Things changed dramatically. We increased to 15 beds and kids could stay as long as they needed to. Our staff could take the time to help them with their appointments and schooling, help them with their medications.

Thanks to a generous donation from Brit Smith through the United Way, we were able to have a transition home for youth 16-19 and we are so grateful for that and we have another transition home for 16-24. Through the shelter and transitional homes youth learn life skills and they move on to college because of this support – 90 per cent of the kids at the transition homes work and go to school and many volunteer and give back as well whenever they can.

Through the funds from the Kingston Penitentiary tours, we have also been able to hire a Family Mediation worker that works to keep kids at home with their families instead of them staying at the shelter– their success rate is 97 per cent.

We are working to break the cycle of homelessness in adolescents. They are just learning about themselves and growing, they are just like any other kid, they just didn’t have that support, but they get it here.

No kid should have to go without the support that we can provide for them. They need to feel like they belong, feel like they are loved and feel like they are worthy and that is what we strive to do each day.

Our community and the support from the community is raising these kids. Thank you for helping raise them.

Kingston Youth Shelter & Transition Home

"My wife and I have always donated to the United Way KFL&A because we know the donated funds are used in our community. In my retirement, I have become more aware of the people in need in our community. I encourage you to support these vital programs by volunteering and by making a donation. Through the United Way you make a difference in the lives of so many."
Jim Parker
"With our United Way funding, we go right to the grocery store or a local supplier and purchase the food that helps a student take advantage of everything school has to offer. You can be confident that your donation to the United Way stays here, in KFL&A and supports students in our community"
Brenda MooreFood Sharing Project
“United Way came in and adopted us and things changed dramatically, we didn’t have people waiting on the step for a bed in the winter. They stay as long as they need to and we help them get into transitional housing. We provide them with structure and help them. Because of United Way we get to help raise these children and I feel honoured and so proud to know them.”
Denise LambKingston Youth Shelter
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United Way of KFL&A would like to acknowledge this traditional territory’s longer existence and its significance for the Indigenous people who lived and continue to live on Turtle Island.

We are situated on traditional Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat land. There are Métis and other non-status First People from many Indigenous Nations present in our community today. This acknowledgement symbolizes the United Way KFL&A’s first step, of many, along this path toward Indigenous reconciliation, in a respectful manner.

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