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United Way receives Community Service Award
United Way of Central Arkansas received the Community Service Award at the annual meeting of the Conway Noon Rotary Club on June 26, 2008.
The award was presented to United Way in recognition of the work being done to identify and address community needs.
United Way has not only identified the needs by poling the community, but is now taking that information back to residents of the area to get input on the creation of a vision plan that will lead to community-level change in the areas of health, income and education.
Bob McCormack, former board chairman for United Way and Rotary member presented the award on behalf of the club. In his remarks, he pointed out the long history of good stewardship United Way has in Faulkner County and the diligence the board and staff take to ensure every dollar is making a positive difference.
Education
Education is one of the basic building blocks of a good life. United Way is committed to programs that ensure children are ready to enter elementary school, have the tools needed to succeed in school, and graduate high school with at least the basic skills expected.
In today’s world, education is an absolute necessity to finding a good job. Because it is getting harder to find a job without a college education, we are also concerned with college retention and graduation rates.
Health
United Way is working with community partners to find ways to improve the health of children and adults as health is strongly linked to our other areas of focus: education and income. A healthy child is better able to learn while an unhealthy child is prone to repeated absenteeism (a predictor of dropping out of school) as well as difficulties with studying, which can lead to lower grades.
A healthy adult is more likely to increase productivity at work than an unhealthy person, who may also be prone to missed days of work, costing not only the employee but also the employer.
Income
The American ideal that hard work will lead to success is in peril as many families – even those with multiple members working – are barely getting by. We cannot expect the government to do all the work to improve self-sufficiency.
Statistics show that with the cost of living, a family needs to earn at least 2.5 times the federal poverty level to be considered financially stable. Our community must strive to improve conditions in this area – a most basic need.