Author: Aviva Pinchas

YLS & student leaders expand the Decker Middle School Garden!

Last month, a small group of volunteers gathered at Decker Middle School to work on the community garden.  We were current YLS members, new volunteering recruits and Volunteer Project Leader students.  One of the VPL leaders even invited a friend from another school to participate— as Julie commented, it truly is neat to see recruiting happening at that age! Standing on a large rock in the middle of the Decker Community Learning Garden, Annie and the student Leaders for the project welcomed the volunteers and described our task—to continue the work begun last year by the VPL class on the Decker Middle School Garden.  Volunteers quickly got to work on the various projects including:  painting the sign for the Decker Community Learning Garden, building two benches, digging holes for the sign and the benches, and making bags out of old banners. The most popular activity seemed to be the bag-making project.  Julie shared this project from Keep Austin Beautiful. This project involved donated banners, staples, and duck tape.  In addition to making bags for carrying the gardening tools, nearly all of the VPL students made at least one bag to bring home or to give to a friend.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these bags as the new “in” fashion in the Manor community. To conclude the event at Decker Middle School, Annie made the surprise announcement that we were going to have a cartwheel contest!  Congratulations Julie for winning the cartwheel contest. After saying our goodbyes to […]

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At 3M, WLC women are “true leaders”

Since 2003, the Women’s Leadership Council has worked to be “the most powerful female-driven philanthropic force in Central Texas” – and with more than 500 members investing in our community annually, it’s safe to say they’re delivering on that promise. At each of the 400+ companies that we work with locally, the WLC looks a bit different, adjusting to the culture and needs of that particular workplace.  Since it’s International Women’s Day, we wanted to find out what drives these incredibly giving women by talking to Judy Donigan, National Account Manager at 3M, about what’s working for them. The WLC group allows us to leverage the power of women and support efforts that are close to our heart.   – Michelle Diggs, 3M Marketing Manager & WLC Member JA Central Texas Board, Any Baby Can Advisory Board, Texas Civil Rights Division Commissioner What makes the WLC at 3M unique?  The WLC women at 3M are true leaders within our company.  They are successful in their different businesses and foster a sense of responsibility in giving back to our community.  Many of the women are board members of nonprofit organizations within the greater Austin area.  All of our members are committed to improving the lives of those with barriers to economic opportunity through our philanthropic efforts.    How many women are involved? Who has the WLC changed over time?  Twenty-four 3M women participate in activities with the Women’s Leadership Council. From my perspective, more 3M women are also taking additional leadership positions […]

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Challenge: stump our data

Just a few weeks ago, we released the 2013 Community Needs and Trends report for our community – and right away, nonprofits  throughout Greater Austin asked for a deeper dive into key elements of this treasure trove of data, including diapers and food needs. We also saw data released from other organizations that reinforced our findings. Here are the big answers, insights & details that came out of it all:  1. Both adult and child diapers are a key need in Greater Austin .@Austindiapers Data show diapers rank high on our list of unmet needs: pic.twitter.com/ZduYnHQZwo — United Way Austin (@uwatx) February 12, 2014 2. Data consistently show women are the majority of those looking for help From @CPPP_TX: Female-headed Texas working families that are low-income increased from 59% in 2007 to 61% in 2012: http://t.co/PXXipZT1Cj — United Way Austin (@uwatx) February 13, 2014 Our #data show women are the majority of those looking for help – & #childcare is a big concern. @MomsRising @CPPP_TX pic.twitter.com/Y6AxAig6FS — United Way Austin (@uwatx) February 19, 2014 3. Food needs vary seasonally but continue growing Capital Area Food Bank aggregated our data to show the growing food needs over the past few years and asked us to look into the effects of cuts to SNAP benefits in November.  .@CAFBTX We dug deeper – food needs spiked earlier in 2013 and bounced up in Dec, unlike in 2012. pic.twitter.com/LWryDF106n — United Way Austin (@uwatx) February 23, 2014   The more than 350K calls we answer […]

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Partner Profile: Farmers Insurance Group

Name: Farmers Insurance Group   Partner for: 15 years   Partner for: Employee Campaign   Our relationship: Involving leadership to make a greater impact Farmers Insurance Group has supported United Way for Greater Austin for nearly 15 years, but has really ramped up their Employee Campaign in the past five. This year, as part of the 2013 Insurance Industry Challenge, Farmers took their involvement with UWATX to a whole new level. Vice President Jim Snikeris helped make this happen by inviting UWATX staff to  speak with employees and share the UWATX mission. UWATX Vice President of Resource Development Debbie McGee and Director of Business Development Beth Krueger also spoke at Farmers leadership meetings. The campaign wouldn’t have been such a huge success without Employee Campaign Leaders Brittany Ilse and Pana Redd, who helped facilitate over 15 Employee Campaign meetings! During the campaign, Farmers set up a table onsite sporting UWATX items including water bottles, pens, and of course pledge forms. Service Point Director Garth Davis encouraged giving by spending time at the table on the company’s first day of campaign, and by being one of the first people to give. He was also one of the first employees to contribute to the Makes Austin Greater wall on display during Employee Campaign – donors wrote their names on Makes Austin Greater stickers, creating a colorful philanthropy wall! Farmers employs best practices: Running a UWATX Branded Campaign Connecting with UWATX outside of Campaign Working to engage HOCT in upcoming volunteer efforts for 2014 […]

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Success By 6 supports Austin’s most vulnerable children

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhsCzogMYL4[/youtube] In 2005, we launched our Success By 6 program – and made a commitment to support our youngest and most vulnerable children. We wanted to make sure the kind of quality early experiences that change lives were available, accessible and affordable. The first few years of life are critical – children who don’t receive quality early care have lower graduation rates than those who do, and the difference is even more stark for girls and women. More than that, quality care shows a significant return-on-investment – we see savings in fewer children repeating grades, lower criminal justice costs and a more productive, successful workforce. It adds up to a $4 to $9 return on every dollar invested. Unfortunately, our community doesn’t invest enough in young children. Compared to cities like Seattle, San Francisco and San Antonio, our investments per child are shocking low. And it shows: only 50 percent of children in Greater Austin are on-track to be ready for school. In low-income neighborhoods, that number drops to 13 percent. That’s why we’ve put together a portfolio of services to support children in all areas of their lives: We invest in evidence-based early childhood programs, including supporting 14 early care centers through our Center Project. We support parents, a child’s first teachers, by developing innovative programs like Play To Learn.   We make sure our community is working together. In 2012, our supporters successfully advocated to restore $500K of public funding for our youngest and most vulnerable community members. […]

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Top needs & trends for 2013: food, health care & bills

Our Navigation Center is uniquely poised on the front-lines of community issues – we answer calls from thousands of Greater Austin residents on issues ranging from child care and tax preparation to food stamps and health care.  Residents who call us are often struggling with every day needs, and all of them are challenged with how to access help for those needs.  We pride ourselves on connecting them to the right resource while also being friendly and professional – and it shows:  our staff maintained a 99% satisfaction rate among callers. To give Austinites a  snapshot of what issues residents struggled with last year, we’re releasing our 2013 Community Needs and Trends Report – download it today.  Here’s what we saw in 2013:  Significant increase in food-related calls Calls related to food needs continue to dominate. We saw a 58 percent increase in food stamp, SNAP and food pantry calls – piggy backing on a 55% increase last year.  Residents continue to struggle with paying bills Residents continue to call in for help paying their electricity and rent bills and to get help with housing. These have consistently been in the top 5 needs in our area for the last three years.  Noticeable jump in calls due to launch of Affordable Care Act We started partnering with Central Health in 2009 to make it easier for individuals to qualify for state and federal health care benefits like CHIP and MAP. Last year, our staff made 85 percent of all the […]

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Navigation Center provides help quickly, accurately, confidentially and for free

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2SuqZipb54[/youtube] Since 1996, the United Way Navigation Center has been connecting callers to the services they need. We took the first 2-1-1 call in Texas in 2002 and to date, our Navigation Center has answered more than two million calls. Here’s how it works: when a caller dials 2-1-1 in our 10-county region, they are connected to one of our Navigators within a minute. The Navigator assesses their needs and then finds appropriate organizations from our database of more than six thousand local resources. Calling isn’t the only way to access our service – you can also go online to search our online database directly. We want to make sure that anyone in need can turn to us in the way that works for them. And we pride ourselves on service: the Navigation Center is free, confidential and multilingual; our specialists are professionally-trained, nationally rated, and also friendly; and along the way, we collect data to provide feedback to decision makers, nonprofits and other stakeholders about what the needs are in our community and how they are evolving.  

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TAKE ACTION: 3 ways to make a difference for young children

The City of Austin is poised to begin their biannual Request For Proposal process for social service contracts – the grants given to nonprofit organization for community services – and we need your help to give a voice to the concerns of young children.  In our community, over 28,000 children under four are living in low-income households. Only 5,000 are receiving the early childhood services they need to start school ready to learn.  We are asking the City to increase funding for early childhood services in the upcoming social services funding competition. These services include  Head Start, home visiting, quality child care and Play To Learn.    [cta][/cta] Since the array of services is fairly complex, we are opting not to ask for a specific amount, but rather to increase awareness about the importance of these services for parents to be successful in the short-term and for children, the future of our community, to thrive in the long-term. Once the formal RFP process begins in late February, City Council Members will be restricted from hearing our message because of conflict of interest regulations – so it’s critical that we get the word our early so City Council Members have the right information as they make decisions.  You can help in a few ways:  1. Go on an advocacy visit  To make our case, our staff experts will meet with City Council members for about 30 mins each to give your voice to vulnerable young children. The process is easy and straight-forward (as […]

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What is payday lending & why does it matter?

Over the past few weeks, much has been discussed in the media about payday lending, how the industry has grown in Texas and what the implications are for our state. We’ve been working on providing alternatives to payday lending through our Financial Opportunity program for a few years. It’ s a complex issue with many facets – so our experts worked together to break it down and answer some questions.  What is a payday loan?  A payday loan is a small, unsecured, high-interest, short-term cash loan that needs to be repaid within two weeks or by the next payday. Borrowers are looking for an average of $500 [PDF], and in Texas, 67 percent of loans are for $500 or less [PDF].  In most cases, borrowers write a post-dated personal check for the advance amount plus a fee. The lender holds the check for the loan period, and then either deposits it or returns the check when the borrower pays in cash. Why do individuals use payday loans?  There is a misconception that payday loans are use for unexpected emergencies, like medical bills or car repair, but the the Pew Charitable Trust found that 69 percent of people took out their first payday loan for “a recurring expense, such as utilities, credit card bills, rent or mortgage payments, or food.”  Oftentimes, borrowers may need to pay bills a few days or a week before their paycheck, so payday loans function as an ‘advance’. What are the benefits of payday loans?  The biggest benefit is speed […]

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Mentoring “can easily change lives with as a little as one hour per week”

In our work, we get to meet and talk with incredible donors and volunteers who are committed to our community – and one of the most remarkable among them is Julie Fisher. Not only is she on the YLS founding committee AND an Employee Campaign Leader for Samsung’s Employee Campaign, but for two-and-a-half years, she’s been giving her time every week to be a mentor.  Since January is Mentoring Month, we thought we’d ask Julie a few questions about her experience:  UWATX Question: What policies does Samsung have to allow their employees to do this kind of work? Julie’s Answer: One of Samsung’s core values is co-prosperity. We are dedicated to being socially and environmentally responsible corporate citizens in every community we operate in. Specifically at our local level, employees are allowed to volunteer on a workload and manager permitting basis. We offer volunteer opportunities at several different times to accommodate the schedules and shifts that our employees work. We encourage our employees to find their passion and connect with our nonprofit partners to ignite inspiring volunteer opportunities. How much time do you spend mentoring each week? What kinds of activities are involved? We meet for at least 1 hour each week . I visit Da’shyra during her lunch period and we usually do arts and crafts and talk about different things going on in her life. At the beginning of our mentoring relationship, we created a scrapbook that I bring every time to sketch, write and put pictures in. It is […]

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