How United Way is working to aid Butler residents in poverty
A leadership donor event hosted by United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania brought together stakeholders from Giant Eagle, the Young Women’s Christian Association of Butler and other groups to discuss Butler County’s population, residents’ needs and how groups can work together to support them.
The event on Thursday, March 19, showed how United Way serves as a bridge to connect multiple agencies, raise money and mobilize volunteers to get resources to the people who need them.
The organization identifies those in need with an income status tool called ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The tool helps identify those living between the federal poverty level and the true cost of living.
Bobbi Watt Geer, president and CEO of United Way, said the federal poverty guidelines only consider the ability to afford food.
Executive Director of the Butler YWCA Elizabeth Short emphasized the importance of providing stability to people so they can move forward.
“When you are consistently solving the crises of today, you don’t have the opportunity to think about future needs,” Short said.
She said such gaps in stability can occur at any stage of life, so the organization works to create programs to get people through all of them.
Project Period is just one of the programs, it gets menstrual products to women in need who may not have any other way to access them. Another program, Getting Ahead, gets participants motivated to work toward improvement by helping them identify their strengths, resources and goals.
“No one’s telling them what to do. They’re respected as experts of their own lived experience and they’re compensated for their time.” Short explained, “So you can see how all these things are building on each other.”
Another program the YWCA utilizes to fill in stability gaps is called Under Our Wing, which provides affordable and stable housing and independent living to older adults in the county. Guests at the event packed kits for participants filled with lip balm, tissues and other items that can’t be attained with SNAP funds or food stamps.
Jesse Sprajcar, senior director of regional impact at United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, talked about how vital partnerships are to the kind of work the organization does. Close relationships with partners allow the organization to get firsthand feedback about challenges facing a specific area.
United Way emphasized future goals and highlighted its donation process, which can allow donations to be allocated to a specific program or as unrestricted, meaning they can identify the area that needs the money the most and send it there.
“We know that even if we raise millions of dollars every year and invest in great partner agencies who are providing services, that if policies don’t align with supporting families and children, we cannot succeed,” Geer said about the future of the programs.
