United Way of the CSRA announced a $2.4 million goal for 2024 at the campaign kickoff event on Friday, Aug. 23.
Last year United Way raised over $2.2 million and impacted the lives of over 209,000 people in the CSRA, said Brittany Burnett, president and CEO of United Way of the CSRA. But because of increase in the need in the CSRA, the goal has been increased for this year. She spoke about ALICE, which is an acronym for asset limited income constrained employed.
“These are hardworking families in our community that are actually making more than the federal poverty level, but they are making less what they need to make ends meet and meet the basics of a household survival budget,” Burnett said. “When you think about a household survival budget, some of us think probably about seven main things, you think about housing, food, healthcare, childcare, transportation, technology, taxes…if you think about those and add them all up, it gets quite of expensive…what we know is wages are not keeping up with the cost of goods and services.”
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In the CSRA, Burnett said 51% of the households are living below the ALICE threshold. She added that 14% of the families are living in poverty and 37% of families are not making enough money.
“When you add poverty and ALICE together, that’s how we’re able to get the 51% of households in our community are struggling,” Alice said. “..,just a year ago our ALICE number was 48% and in one year that number increased to 51%. So, more families are struggling and it’s up to us to come up with some of those solutions.”
To support these families, United Way is doing a few new things. Burnett said they have added Screven County to the coverage area and increased the work with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. Mission United is a new program to serve as a connection point for families in the military and help them navigate services offered to them.
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Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is not only one of the sponsors for the event, but has been raising money for United Way for many years. Staci Peters, acting senior vice president for business services at SRNS, said the organizations believes in giving back to the community.
“In 2023 our employees gave back to the surrounding communities, exceeding their goal by surpassing their limit and raising over $800,000, bringing out grand total since 2008 to over $20 million for the United Way and it doesn’t stop there,” Peters said. “SRNS continue to generously volunteer in their personal time such as with the project serve event today. Speaking of the Project Serve event, at our mission is to make the world safer.”
Jay Johnson, deputy vice president, contracts and supply chain at SRNS and United Way board chair, spoke about the work that volunteers were going to do on Friday. He said there were over 400 volunteers signed up to provide over 1,500 hours of services at 28 project sites.
“We can’t do this work without each and every one of you,” Burnett said. “When our families are thriving, our businesses thrive and ultimately our entire community will thrive and not barely survive.”
For more information on the United Way of the CSRA, visit https://www.uwcsra.org.
