By Wm. Shawn Weigel, Daily Local News

The United Way of Southern Chester County kicked off their 2011-12 fundraising campaign last week, with a goal of $1.2 million for area agencies.  Board president Mike Horak said that last year’s campaign put over $1 million of privately donated funds back into community programs and organizations, despite the fact that requests for funding in 2010-11 exceeded UWSCC’s allocable funds by 29 percent for the second year in a row.

“Our hope is that we can fill the gap that exists between what our neighbors so desperately need and what we are able to fund,” Horak said.  “We can’t do this by just moving money around – we have to get involved.“  Horak said the agency plans to meet those needs by continuing programs like LIFT (Literacy in Financial Training) and agency mentoring, and by continuing fundraising opportunities like the annual pasta dinner at Unionville High School and the October Road Rally.

They’ll also continue recruiting volunteers for a variety of programs, Horak said.  “We have 234 hard working volunteers who helped 1 in 7 people in Southern Chester County this past year,” Horak said, adding that the organization provides direct help to over 13,000 residents from Nottingham to Chadds Ford.  “A big part of our ongoing success is the dedicated group of volunteer board and committee members. I do have to say that in my tenure with our group we have one of the most involved, energetic boards ever,” he said.

Executive director Carrie Freeman said that the board started last spring to rethink exactly how the organization distributes its funds.  “For so many years we had what we called the ‘five buckets,’ but we’ve worked to examine where we’ll have the most impact on the community,” Freeman said.   “Basically the idea is to take people from crisis to independence.

”Freeman said the three groupings – crisis intervention, promoting stability and sustainability, and transitioning to independence – roughly reflect the original funding groups and do not affect any current agencies receiving funds.  “Most of our current programs fit into this kind of a movement, so it’s not like a program is losing funding.  But as new programs come to us, this is the criteria we’ll be applying.”

She also said the goal of the change is geared towards the philosophy of: give a man a fish he eats for a day – teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime.  “We’ve noticed that people seem to live their lives in crisis, which is self-defeating to throw money at that year after year,” Freeman said.  “This is more like caseworking that family – what can we do to get them past this cycle of being endlessly on the wheel?”

They will also continue to focus on education opportunities for children and families, Freeman said – a continued portion of the new change.  “From direct distributions to partner agencies to programs helping individual citizens one-on-one, our Allocations process continues to be a well-run impartial funds distribution process,” Horak said.

For more information on the United Way of Southern Chester County, visit www.unitedwayscc.org or call 610-444-4357.