United Way of the Brown County Area

For over sixty-five years the United Way of the Brown County Area have played a unique role by bringing together people from every part of our community donors, volunteers, advocates, nonprofit organizations, ommunity leaders, and people with lived experience. United ways strategic vision is we envision a United and resilient community where everyone belongs and thrives. We will unite people and partners to ensure our neighbors struggling to make ends meet, land on their feet, and stay there. United ways work and investments are focused on addressing the challenges in the areas of health, education, and financial stability. the United Way of Brown County Area is a vibrant organization that has a rich history of connecting people and resources. Our programming is of the highest quality, and we are well respected in the communities we serve. In 2022-2023 the United Way youth activities scholarship program gave out 239 scholarships totaling over 25,700. These scholarships have gone to young people throughout Brown County, ages 3 to 18, whose family income is insufficient to afford activity and/or equipment fees. Scholarships are available for up to 200 per year per youth and provide 80% of the activity fees and 50% of the equipment costs. the goal of this program is to ensure that Area youth will not be denied the opportunity to participate in character building activities ranging from music and dance lessons to sports and other activities. This past year, the United Way of the Brown County Area continued the programs vision to foster a love of reading among preschool children and their families by providing them with the gift of a specially selected book each month. Through the dollywood foundation, imagination library is one of the United Way of Brown County areas most beloved programs. By mailing high quality, age-appropriate books directly to their homes, we want children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, this program ensures that every child has books, regardless of the familys income. Since the initial program launch in the United states, imagination library has gone from just a few dozen books to nearly forty million books mailed to children in the United states, and that includes over 1,050 books mailed in Brown County each month. If a child is read to for 20 minutes every day, they will start school with an 800-word vocabulary. As we face continued challenges to meet the demands of a high-tech world, we need to do whatever we can to make our youngest citizens prepared to succeed. In 2023, over 475 backpacks filled with age, grade and school district appropriate supplies weregiven to children all over Brown County through our stuff the backpack program. These backpacks were made available to children from families in need to help ensure that the children can get off to a good start in school. the United Way partnered with alliance bank to receive backpacks and school supplies. In addition, more than 30 businesses, organizations, and many individual donors throughout the County gave thousands of dollars worth of school supplies. This was an amazing effort, and without the generosity of the citizens of Brown County we would not have been able to provide so many children with the tools needed to start the school year. Thursday, october 26, firday, october 27 and sturday, october 28 was the untied Way of Brown countys 25th annual day of caring. the day of caring is an annual event to make a positive difference through volunteering. Over 100 volunteers in 25 teams spent part of the day helping others in our County. 65 projects were completed in the Brown County Area. This program is at the foundation of what we do, connect our greatest resource, our people, to those who need a helping hand. Project lunchbox is a weekend food program for kids in k-6th grades in new ulm public schools. It is also provided to the riverbend district and st. pauls. This is our seventh year providing this much needed program in the new ulm school district. the task of organizing the dry goods, purchasing, and overseeing the process of packing and distributing the food is monumental. the food is packaged and delivered to schools for kids who qualify for free or reduced lunches. the food packages are then placed in a child's backpack on friday to be taken home. These food packages include two meals, two snacks, and two beverages to get each child through the weekend. An army of volunteers is instrumental in the execution of this program. Hunger can have a huge impact on young children, causing anxiety, poor behavior, and impairment to learning and food instability is a very real problem in the Brown County Area. Project lunchbox provides the vital nutrition that students need for school success. There are many barriers for the elderly, working poor, and young students in getting their taxes done each year. Time, access or understanding of how the tax system works, and most of all the lack of funds to pay someone to do their taxes are just a few of the barriers facing Brown County Area residents. Whatever the barrier, United Way of the Brown County areas free tax preparation program is in place to help those individuals. Each year community members volunteer to become irs certified tax preparers and/or client facilitators through aarp to help local Area citizens. This puts thousands of refund tax dollars back into our communities and into the hands of those who need it most.

In addition to its grants to organizations helping individuals in need, the United Way also sponsors a youth scholarship program to help families with the fees associated with participation in various youth activities. Disbursements are not made to the individuals, but are made to the youth organizations to ensure they are used as intended.