National 2-1-1 Day, celebrated on February 11, recognizes the more than 200 2-1-1 helplines located across the country. For the past 20 years, United Way for Greater Austin’s 2-1-1 helpline has connected thousands of Central Texans to local, statewide, and national resources such as housing, food, health, child care, education, employment, transportation, counseling, disaster information, and more. This year, we are celebrating 2-1-1 Day by recognizing our compassionate Navigation Specialists, who power this service and work around the clock to answer the call for members of our community. Just last year, our 2-1-1 Navigation Specialists answered 157,514 calls for help in our region. One of these specialists is Susan Martinez. She began working at United Way last year because she believes everyone in our community deserves to have their basic needs met. “There’s a real disparity in wealth here that’s getting bigger and bigger,” Susan said. “We all have to do what we can to close that gap. I feel like it’s our duty as humans to help out and do our part, however small that may be.” Read more about why and how Susan answers the call day in, day out to support fellow Texans – and how each and every call advances our mission to fight poverty. What brought you to United Way? I’ve always been involved in some sort of volunteer work in nonprofits since my 20’s. I liked that the mission of United Way is to end poverty because it’s such a huge problem all over […]
Read More