UWATX held a breakfast briefing event at Google Fiber on February 5th to update business and philanthropic leaders and stakeholders on how far the Success By 6 program has come–and how many more children still remain unserved. Speakers included Dr. Leah Newkirk Meunier, UWATX Vice President of Mission Advancement; Mayor Steve Adler; Dr. Paul Cruz, Superintendent of Austin ISD; Elizabeth Sobel-Blum, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Catherine Morse, UWATX Board Chair; and Mollie Duckworth, WLC Member. Speaker Highlights: –Elizabeth Sobel-Blum noted four numbers to remember: 700 = In the first few years of a child’s life, 700 new neural connections are formed every second. 18 = Differences in the size of a child’s vocabulary first appear at 18 months of age, based on whether they were born into a family with high education and income, or a family with low education and income levels. 2:1 = By age three, children with college-educated parents or primary caregivers had vocabularies 2 to 3x larger than those whose parents had not completed high school. 3:1 = Adults who recall having seven or eight highly stressful experiences in childhood are 3x more likely to have cardiovascular disease. –Dr. Leah Meunier gave an update on the Success By 6 program. There are 6,344 low-income three-year-olds in Travis County. 2,036 are served through Head Start, childcare subsidies or their local school district; 4,308 remain unserved. –Mayor Adler noted that the city has increased its funding for preschool by 25% and sees it as a highly important […]
Read MoreTexas Ranks 41st in Assets & Opportunity
The 2016 CFED Assets & Opportunity Scorecard was recently released. CFED is the Corporation For Enterprise Development, an organization that works to create pathways for financial security and opportunity on a local, state and federal level. The Assets & Opportunity Scorecard ranks each state’s residents on five categories: financial assets and income, businesses and jobs, housing and home ownership, health care and education. Within each category are multiple subcategories, such as banking, net income, unemployment rate, low-wage jobs, foreclosure rates and more. Here are a few highlights from this year’s Texas scorecard; to read rankings, 1st is better in terms of economic opportunities for residents while 51st is worst (District of Columbia included as a state in survey): Financial Assets and Income Unbanked and underbanked households 10.4% of Texas households are unbanked while 27.4% are underbanked. “Unbanked” means a household does not have a checking or savings account, while “underbanked” households may have accounts but still rely on payday loans, pawn shops or money orders to get the money they need when they need it. Nationwide, 7.7% of households are unbanked while 20% are underbanked; this puts Texas ranking 41st in unbanked households and 50th in underbanked households–nearly the worst in the nation. Income poverty rate The income poverty rate is the number of households living below the federal poverty threshold. 15.7% of Texas households live in poverty, putting the state in 37th place. The average in the U.S. is 14.5%. Businesses and Jobs Low-wage jobs The low-wage jobs rating measures the number […]
Read MoreDonor Champions United Way After Receiving Years of Support
Lisa Suarez is the campaign leader for UPS, as well as a leadership giver and Women’s Leadership Council member. While every donor has a different reason driving them to give, Lisa’s longstanding relationship with United Way has transformed over time uniquely, as she started as a services recipient before turning into a donor. Lisa grew up in a low-income family that moved frequently due to the financial hardships they were faced with. “It really is a vicious cycle. I was never encouraged to go to college even though I was a straight ‘A’ student. That’s just not the priority in low-income neighborhoods…just living day to day is the priority, so most people don’t have the means or even the knowledge to encourage their kids to try to do more and break the cycle. As your grow up, you do what you are familiar with and begin to look for jobs that just get you by. You do what you’ve grown up seeing from your parents–the minimum–because that’s all they knew too.” “My life would have been completely different without United Way. It’s afforded me a life that I didn’t come from and didn’t think was possible for me, and I looked back and realized United Way got me where I am today. I haven’t reached all of my goals in life yet, but now I know that I’m capable of doing it–and I didn’t know that before.” –Lisa Suarez “People think those in need aren’t trying for themselves. When you […]
Read More300+ Volunteered on MLK Day of Service
MLK Day of Service is a national initiative to strengthen communities, bridge barriers between different groups of people, create solutions to our social problems and move us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a “Beloved Community.” Thousands of individuals around the U.S. honor Dr. King’s legacy on this day by participating in volunteer projects that encourage community collaboration and make our towns a better place to live. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, more Americans live in poverty today than during Dr. King’s lifetime–which is why it is more important now than ever to work together to make Austin greater for all residents. More than 300 volunteers signed up to work on eight projects for this year’s MLK Day of Service on January 16th. This annual event is hosted by United Way for Greater Austin, Keep Austin Beautiful and State Representative Dawnna Dukes. We kicked off the event at UWATX with breakfast and encouraging speeches from Mayor Steve Adler, UWATX Board Member Rodney Northern and other influential community members. Volunteers then dispersed to work on a variety of projects, ranging from a clean-up of MLK Jr. Boulevard to creating works of art of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to be auctioned off to raise money for UWATX’s Middle School Matters program. Some of the groups that signed up for the event were Apple employees, current and alumni AmeriCorps […]
Read MoreNew Year’s Resolutions You Can Actually Keep
The new year is always a great time to reflect on where you have been and set goals for how you want to live your life for the upcoming 365 days. New Year’s resolutions don’t always have to be a hard and radical lifestyle change–in fact, that makes it much harder to make them actually come to fruition! Instead, check out some ideas for a New Year’s resolution that not only will make you feel better, but also will improve the lives of those around you. We even have tangible ideas to get you started on how to make them happen. In 2016, I want to…. Spend more time with family Have you heard about our Family Volunteer series? We host these free events at our United Way offices in East Austin, and they are a great way to encourage your little ones to learn about giving back in an engaging way. Our next Family Volunteer event takes place on February 6th from 10 a.m. to noon, and we will be making Valentine’s Day cards to show our appreciation for the local agencies we work with. Keep an eye out on the Hands On Central Texas site for more details coming soon and to sign up. Meet new people Check out our United Way giving societies: the Women’s Leadership Council, the Young Leaders Society and the Century Investors. Each group is made up of some of our most philanthropic supporters, who share common interests, enjoy networking events, and volunteer and advocate together. Learn […]
Read MoreSamsung, BuildASign Nominated for Philanthropy Awards
Our corporate partner Samsung Austin Semiconductor was nominated for the “Outstanding Philanthropic Large Organization” award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) this year. The company will be honored for this achievement at the Philanthropy Day awards ceremony on February 4th, 2016. Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s General Counsel and Senior Director of Public Affairs, Catherine Morse, who also serves as UWATX Board Chair, spoke to us about the accomplishment and how Samsung’s long-term investment in UWATX played a large part in the company being recognized for this award. “We feel good about this award because we have a focused philanthropic effort on early childhood education, youth development, STEM education and environmental sustainability,” Morse said. “By far, our largest partner for the past five years has been United Way.” Samsung was nominated for this award by UWATX, Open Door Preschools and Breakthrough Austin. In 2010, Samsung Austin Semiconductor made a $1 million donation to our Success By 6 program. Since then, more than 200 families have benefitted from the program and numerous high-quality preschool programs have been opened as a result. “As a community investor, we really want to focus on evidence based-programming and that’s what sets United Way apart from other nonprofits. UWATX is a good steward of Samsung’s dollars because they measure outcomes of programs and hold other nonprofits accountable for the work they do. It doesn’t make much sense to invest in things that just ‘feel good,’ but things that work and result in better outcomes for the community. […]
Read MoreWhat’s Inside a Play To Learn Kit?
We are currently prepping to serve new families and children through our Play To Learn program in Spring 2016. UWATX launched Play To Learn in 2012 to coach parents on fostering school readiness at home for children who do not attend childcare. Parents and their children attend classes at accessible neighborhood locations, such as libraries, and learn together from early learning coaches. We could not serve so many families without the help of volunteer groups, mostly from companies we run campaigns with, who assist us by setting up tablets and putting together Play To Learn take home kits. But what exactly makes up the Play To Learn curriculum? Each week, the classes have a a different theme and curriculum to go along with that theme. The eight-week program follows these themes, in order: social/emotional skills, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language development, social/emotional skills, geometry, emerging literacy and numeracy. Each week’s kit contains a book, a handout and hands-on materials needed for the lesson, such as construction paper, paints, stickers, etc. For example, the week on language development contains a Curious George book, Curious George puppets, journals, stickers and colored pencils. The puppets have questions on the back in both English and Spanish, for parents to ask their children at home to further promote language development. We also provide families with Samsung Galaxy tablets so that they can continue learning at home after each week’s class. Before the program begins, volunteers ready the tablets by setting up a Gmail account for […]
Read MoreUWATX 2015 Impact on Community
Check out what United Way for Greater Austin was able to do for our community this year, all because of YOU–our donors, volunteers, supporters and funders. We could not have done any of this important work without your support, and we are so grateful to have compassionate, generous donors like you making this possible for thousands of struggling families and individuals in our city. Just think–your donation is giving a child living in poverty the chance to be the next great doctor, mayor or perhaps even the person that will solve the Austin traffic crisis. Your investment in UWATX is an investment in the future of our great city. Thank you once again for your support, and let’s work together to make Austin even greater in 2016!
Read MoreLocal Companies Sponsor Families For the Holidays
The holiday season is a favorite time of the year for many of us. It’s not the presents or bright lights or parties that make the season, but rather the warm feeling we get from remembering what is most important in life: gratitude, friendship, family, community, fellowship and feeling cared for. During the holiday season United Way for Greater Austin receives an outpouring of generosity from the community through volunteer efforts, donations and overall holiday joy. We too like to take part in that joy by partnering with companies to sponsor and thank the families who are featured in our marketing materials throughout the year. Thanks to the generosity of both NXP (formerly known as Freescale) and Atlassian, ten families were “adopted” this year for the holidays. Employees from NXP and Atlassian contributed their own personal dollars to purchase and wrap gifts for each family member. Gifts included toys from personal wish lists, clothing, shoes and household items, including TVs and iPads. Many of the families asked for simple necessities, such as baking dishes and coats for the kids. “At NXP, giving back is part of our DNA. We are proud to partner with the United Way to support making the holidays special for nine families in the greater Austin area. Our employees have really stepped up this year to support more families and try to make a difference in Austin.” –Rick Morales, NXP In addition, KPMG gave each family a holiday meal kit so that families could share a warm and […]
Read MoreMath and Literacy Results Show Huge Strides For At-Risk Kids
One thing that sets United Way for Greater Austin apart from other non-profits is that all of our programs are research-based and results-driven. We are happy to announce the latest set of data showing our Success By 6 program is making a measurable, positive impact on local children. Between August of 2014 and July 2015, five AmeriCorps members were placed at seven Early Learning and Child Development Centers (five of which we work with through our Center Project, two that are family-serving agencies with early literacy programs). The members provided intensive math and literacy interventions to children for seven months. The AmeriCorps members engaged in both small group and one-on-one instruction with the children using research-based curriculum. Results from this project are extraordinary and broken down in three ways: gains made in language development, gains made in math skills and gains made on any assessment. 100% of children who received the intervention made gains in either their math or vocabulary levels, if not both. First, we looked whether children participating in the intervention showed improvement on either their language or math skills. Language skills were assessed by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) or its Spanish equivalent, Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes Peabody (TVIP). These assessments look at a child’s ability to understand specific words that are said to them, which is called receptive language ability. The math assessment was developed by UWATX’s Success By 6 staff and was based on the High Scope Numbers Plus curriculum. It measures a […]
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