United Way of Greater Plymouth County
Allocations for FY 2008

Press Release

"UNITED WAY DISTRIBUTES $1 MILLION"

The United Way of Greater Plymouth County is proud to announce that it will allocate $1,005,100 million dollars to area non profit organizations, an increase of $82,000 to area human service providers over last year. According to Mark Moreau, Chair of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Greater Plymouth County, "generating over a million dollars to help our neighbors is a real milestone for our United Way"!

The distribution of funds in this year's allocation process is a continuation of the movement of the United Way of Greater Plymouth County to "community impact". According to Shailah Stewart, Chair of the Community Impact Committee of the United Way Board of Directors, "we continue to refine our allocation process so that we fund initiatives in greater Plymouth County that are responding to the pressing regional needs identified by the community". To this end United Way will be distributing $852,269 to twenty-five area non profits in the Brockton, Plymouth and greater Plymouth County areas based on the degree to which they address needs identified in United Way's recent community needs survey as well as on the quality of the proposals submitted. These funded initiatives address affordable housing, youth violence, after school and child care, child obesity and nutrition, affordable health care for the elderly, domestic violence, hunger and homelessness.

"Volunteers are at the heart of what our United Way is doing", reports Dennis Carman, President and CEO of the United Way. Carman explained that United Way is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. In addition, United Way's community needs survey had been conducted by a volunteer task force of 12 members from the community. United Way campaigns have been run with the support of hundreds of volunteers, and the review and recommendation for the distribution of these funds have been accomplished by a 15 member allocations panel of volunteers. According to Carman, "being volunteer driven is what makes United Way unique and vital to our community"!

In addition to these allocations to local charitable organizations, United Way is also providing $55,000 for local information, referral and advocacy services through the Brockton Area Multi-Services, Inc.'s "Helpline" as well as $33,000 for Mass211, a statewide initiative that allows citizens throughout the Commonwealth to receive up to date information about area health and human services simply by dialing 211.