United Way of Kern County

Early childhood literacy and development: the organization works to improve health and school readiness among pre-school children by empowering parents and caregivers to be their children's first teachers. Programs include raising a reader, which provides book distributions to low-income preschools; bornlearning, which provides parent education materials, books and resources to families of newborns and young children; and a book-of-the-month club, which provides free children's books to more than 440 families each month. Bornlearning trails have been installed in six local parks, providing educational activities for parents to engage in with their children as they enjoy time together at play.

Homeless collaborative project management:uwkc is the lead agency for the Kern County homeless collaborative, a group of 24 public, private and nonprofit organizations working to reduce homelessness in Kern County. Uwkc acts as the collaborative's fiscal sponsor and employs a full-time project manager to oversee and facilitate the work of the collaborative and its many standing and ad hoc committees. With uwkc support, the collaborative submits an annual application for federal funding, which brings $3 million to $5 million per year to Kern County agencies serving the homeless; conducts an annual point-in-time count of the homeless; conducts homeless outreach events; and continually educates the community on the issue of homelessness.

Vita program:during the year, uwkc led a coalition of public, private and nonprofit organizations in providing free volunteer income tax assistance (vita) services to low and moderate-income taxpayers. The group, known collectively as the Kern vita partnership, operates fixed-site and mobile tax preparation centers, staffed by irs-certified volunteers. The goal is to help eligible residents claim all the tax benefits they have earned, particularly the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. Nearly 2,600 tax returns were filed, and $4.5 million in refunds claimed.