LULING — The investment back in the community keeps increasing.

Now it is at an organizational 60-year high, organizers said.

That was the news shared this week by the United Way of St. Charles Board of Directors, which approved a total program expenditure of $2,644,287 for the 2015-2016 fiscal year at its June meeting.

The 2014-2015 investment was $2.27 million, compared to $2.2 million in 2013-2014.

Executive Director John Dias told L’OBSERVATEUR that United Way officials in St. Charles have seen a small but steady Campaign growth each year.

“That growth, coupled with the use of reserves, has allowed our current outreach,” he said.

United Way of St. Charles is a non-profit organization that raises funds to support local agencies and programs in the areas of education, income and health.

Some of the local agencies approved for funding include St. Charles Community Health Center, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cancer Association of Greater New Orleans, American Red Cross, Alpha Daughters of Zion and Second Harvest.

The United Way of St. Charles Community Investment Committee, with the assistance of community review teams, is responsible for reviewing all requests during the funds distribution process.

Committee members evaluate agency budget requests in terms of community needs, analyze and evaluate the cost of programs and devise and improve methods of evaluating program effectiveness.
“Our volunteers take the fund distribution process very seriously,” said Kacy Kernan, director of community impact. “Our donors can feel confident that agencies receiving UWSC funding have been thoroughly vetted and selected for the services they provide.”

In addition to providing support to agencies, United Way of St. Charles also develops and implements programs that target specific needs in St. Charles Parish that are not addressed by any other agencies.

“United Way of St. Charles would like to thank the volunteers involved in making these funding decisions,” Dias said. “Our volunteers spent a lot of time reviewing the requests for funding and visiting with our partner agencies to understand what services they provide to the community with United Way funding.”

For more information about United Way of St. Charles, visit uwaysc.org or call 985-331-9063.