Meeting the Needs of our Community

Over the last six months, we've been adapting our work to meet the needs of the community. I wanted to provide you an update.

At the end of March, we transitioned our staff to work virtually to ensure the health of our office and our volunteers. We partnered with the Community Foundation of Northcentral Wisconsin to raise money for the COVID-19 Community Response Fund. Close to $500,000 was raised  to support programs and services impacted by the pandemic.  In April, the Marathon County Hunger Coalition began delivering food to rural schools because of school closures. In May, we honored and celebrated frontline workers and participated in #givingtuesdaynow. We received more than 5,000 Thank A Healthcare Worker thank you notes and distributed them to local healthcare workers. You can still say thank you by filling out a virtual card. 

In June, we held our Week of Action, transitioning from in-person to virtual and remote volunteer opportunities. During this week, each day was dedicated to a cause and community members could participate from their homes. We also launched Thank a Small Business. Another June thru August success has been our partnership with the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. In cooperation with The Neighbors' Place and the USDA we distributed 1,325 boxes of food, totaling more than 17.8 tons of food and 18,144 bottles of water, with the help of 36 volunteers.

In July, we distributed more than 2,100 masks and participated in public awareness campaigns promoting mask wearing for health and safety. Over the past few months we have hosted virtual education sessions online about COVID-19, mental health, diabetes and fraud prevention.

This past month, we took our Campaign Kick-off event VIRTUAL. United Way of Marathon County presented a LIVE, virtual event to begin our campaign season with volunteer participation and two opportunities to win. Click here to watch.