Blog

Day of Caring – September 20, 2013

Posted on November 1, 2013January 20, 2022 by Lindsey Tyner

A welcome weather system accompanied by cooler temperatures and scattered thunderstorms didn’t stop 175 volunteers from participating in United Way of Williamson County’s Day of Caring. Thank you to all the volunteers, made up of individuals, families and groups from many local employers, for coming together to brave the elements and complete projects at 19 locations across Williamson County! A special thank you goes out to our friends at H-E-B for the breakfast tacos and Starbucks for the coffee. THANK YOU to our event sponsors for supporting volunteerism in the community!

Partner Profile: Bank of America

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Aviva Pinchas

Name: Bank of America Partner for: 20+ years Partner for: Employee Campaign, Financial Opportunity Our relationship: Bank of America runs an Employee Giving Campaign every year, but with new Austin Market President Nikki Salzillo being open to doing things differently this year, Bank of America took their Campaign to a completely new level. This year, campaign co-chairs Anne Walker and Luke Martinez set out to make a bigger impact. Both engaged as UWATX Strategic Advisors (Anne advising Financial Opportunity and Target Graduation, and Luke working with Young Leaders Society and Hands On Central Texas), they were inspired to grow their company’s support for our community. Here’s what they did differently: Involving leadership to make a greater impact Prior to their campaign kickoff, Bank of America held their Austin market leadership meeting at UWATX, where UWATX President Debbie Bresette, Nikki Salzillo and campaign co-chairs Walker and Martinez spoke with the team about the importance of giving and the real-world impact their donations carry. The Bank of America Employee Campaign Leadership Team amplified this powerful message by sharing it with the site leaders at every Austin Market Bank of America location – empowering site leaders to take ownership over their Employee Campaign and engage their peers. Motivated by the message, many leaders invited our staff to come in and speak at their site! Encouraging philanthropy both inside and outside of the office To encourage participation in its UWATX Employee Campaign, Bank of America offers jean days to sites with 100 percent participation. […]

HEB Campaign Celebration – October 23, 2013

Posted on October 25, 2013January 20, 2022 by Lindsey Tyner

Since H-E-B was founded in 1905, the company has always make people a priority; people and the community matter to them. That commitment was evident once again at the 2013 United Way store coordinators thank you lunch on October 23, 2013. Held at the Mueller – Austin 30 store, representatives from across Central Texas gathered to celebrate another record-breaking campaign year. Partners raised more than $1.17 million for people in need across Central Texas. In Williamson County, 1,829 partners pledged almost $308,000 for education, income, health and basic needs programs across the area. The impact of these contributions will allow thousands of families and individuals to access help when they need it the most. THANK YOU to each of our store coordinators and every H-E-B partner for investing in Williamson County!

After-school programs make a difference for students like Lillie

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Aviva Pinchas

Middle school is a tipping point for many students – and while what happens during the school day is critical, students spend more than 76 percent of their AWAKE time outside of school. That’s why we invest in quality out-of-school-time programs through Target Graduation, but the importance of these programs can sometimes be pretty abstract. Until you meet people like Lillie – a seventh-grade straight-A student at Mendez Middle School. She’s lived in Dove Springs for ten years and last year, she became involved with Junior Staff, a program from the Boys and Girls Club that students apply to participate in. Through Junior Staff, Lillie learns job skills by taking a leadership role in the program and learns how to run effective after-school programs for other students. “I believe Lillie believes in us as much as we believe in her and I think she will continue to flourish and grow as a vital part of our program.” Steven Zuniga, Extension Director of the Boys and Girls Club at Mendez Middle School Here’s what Lillie has to say about the program: Why did you start participating in the program? I started in sixth grade because because the people were really nice and my dad thought it would be good for me. The first time I went I had a lot of fun so I kept coming every week. What is your favorite part of the program? My favorite day is the day they celebrated my birthday. They wrote it […]

[VIDEO] “Working together, we have more impact”

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Aviva Pinchas

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn8PdKiy2Ac[/youtube] Bobby Jenkins, President and Owner of ABC Home & Commercial, has been advocating for UWATX for the past year and a half as co-chair of our Employee Giving Campaign. In his own words, it’s been an inspiring experience: I’ve learned a lot – some of the things that resonate with me is a lot of what happens locally with United Way. That’s something that, as United Way has evolved and changed, that local component is near and dear to my heart. And the ability for United Way to bridge multiple agencies is one of the things I think is unique – there’s a lot of agencies doing a lot of great things, United Way is the common denominator that can help unite them – working together, we can have a lot more impact than individually.

2013 Campaign Awards

Posted on October 15, 2013January 21, 2022 by Lindsey Tyner

Congratulations to the 2013 Campaign Award winners! You inspire us to do more for Williamson County. Thank you! Partner of the Year – Mel’s Lone Star Lanes and CJ’s Catering Large Campaign of the Year Award (1,000+ employees) – State Farm Insurance Mid-size Campaign of the Year Award (100-999 employees) – TDIndustries Small Campaign of the Year Award (less than 100 employees) – Oncor Volunteer Partner of the Year – Southwestern University Campaign Coordinator of the Year (tie) – Sandy Kotara, Atmos Energy and the campaign team at Texas Guaranteed Student Loans Community Builder Awards for top three companies who increased giving by the greatest dollar amount – H-E-B, State Farm Insurance and TD Industries Outstanding Employee Campaign Awards were also presented to H-E-B – Round Rock #3 and H-E-B in Cedar Park (Parmer/1431), Target Stores in Georgetown and Cedar Park and State Farm Insurance Improving the lives of Williamson County families now and for future generations is the focus for many local businesses that invest time and resources in the work of United Way of Williamson County through their annual workplace campaign. At an annual awards celebration held at Mel’s Lone Star Lanes on May 10, 2013 more than 20 local businesses were recognized for their commitment to investing locally in education, income, health and basic needs programs that help Williamson County residents improve their lives. In the past year, United Way of Williamson County (UWWC) Campaign Partners have invested more than $500,000 in grants and an additional $70,000 […]

Three years at once: the Employee Campaign story

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Aviva Pinchas

We work with 400+ companies locally to run Employee Giving Campaigns – giving their employees the opportunity to invest a portion of every paycheck in our community. But with different schedules, fiscal years and payroll cycles for each company, it can get pretty complicated, which means our team stays on top of three years at a time. We support these kooky schedules because we believe any one who makes a paycheck in our community should have the opportunity to give back, so we’ve developed processes to adapt to any company’s needs. Here’s how: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eke0sl9dr9k[/youtube] Every step of the process is completely flexible depending on the company’s needs, but here are a couple of common examples: Example 1: Company A wants to run their campaign in July. They prefer paper pledge forms because their employees are not often in front of a computer and, because they have branches across the state, want to enter their giving information themselves. After that process, they’ll their giving to our team by the end of November, but payroll deductions won’t begin until January, meaning their monthly payments to UWATX start in the new calendar year. Example 2: Company B wants to run a short one-week campaign in November. Because of the busy holiday season, they anticipate they’ll report their giving by the end of January. They will then begin payouts on a quarterly basis with the start of their fiscal year in April. While their campaign runs in November, we won’t see these gifts until […]

Honoring LBJ’s legacy: Building a better future for American children

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Leah Meunier

More than 40 years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson passed away. The Texas native set the stage for many of our country’s most critical services for those in need, including the Head Start program. His philosophy of providing support services to help American families thrive is an inspiration for our overall work helping the working poor in our community, and particularly the Success By 6 program. In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Johnson declared a War on Poverty – a war we would fight through education and opportunity – and from that speech, the legacy of Head Start was born. The program was based on emerging research that you could break the cycle of poverty by providing a high-quality education to the youngest and most vulnerable among us: preschool-age children. The Head Start model that LBJ championed ensured that the emotional, social, nutritional and psychological needs of children would be met, knowing that it’s not just ABC’s and 123’s that children need to be ready for school, work and life. This is the same philosophy that inspires our work in early childhood. Today, research continues to affirm the value of the Head Start program. Longitudinal research shows that, to predict long-term success, it is not enough to look at what children know – – like how many capital letters they can recognize – but to include executive function and self-regulation – the ability to pay attention, exercise self-control, communicate, use what you know, and take on new challenges. In the […]

Hands On Central Texas gets a makeover!

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Lauren Bradshaw

We strongly believe that donating your time is a valuable gift to our community – which is why we run Austin’s largest volunteer network. This week, we updated the Hands On Central Texas site to make it easier for volunteers to find what they’re looking for. Here’s what changed: New homepage We’ve updated the homepage with a more intuitive slideshow so you can easily browse the top events we have going on. We’ve also added a stream of photos from projects and created project categories. Project categories We’ve heard from you that the search function on the site is tricky – it doesn’t always pull the opportunities you’re really looking for. So we decided to take the guess work out of connecting to volunteering by making it easier to access opportunities in the areas we see most often. The categories – which are accessible from the home page and the new By Categories page – include opportunities related to our UWATX Strategic Programs (Success By 6, Target Graduation and Financial Opportunity) and those that offer team building, are family friendly or fit a seasonal need, like tax prep or holiday volunteering. Our goal is to connect you to meaningful volunteering – so let us know if you’re not seeing what you want to see. Easy-to-find calendar We often direct volunteers to our calendar to find the right opportunities for them – so we’ve made the calendar accessible from every page on the site. Now, you can easily see a calendar […]

[VIDEO] Success By 6 – making sure every child is ready to learn

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Aviva Pinchas

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23fsa-DCZn8[/youtube] In our community, only 50 percent of children start school ready to learn – that number drops to 13 percent in low-income Austin neighborhoods. We are working to change that statistic though Success By 6 – our program to fundamentally change the landscape of care for our youngest and most vulnerable children. Today, 90 percent of children who participate in Success By 6 initiatives are on-track developmentally to be ready for school. Want to learn more? Tell us: [pardot-form id=”6638″ title=”Email marketing – welcome series”]