United Way of Greater Stark County launches 2022 fundraising campaign

The United Way of Greater Stark County has kicked off its 100th annual campaign, with a goal of raising $4.7 million to help fund programs in Stark and Carroll counties.

That amount is down about $400,000 from last year's goal.

Angela Perisic, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Stark County, said the agency anticipates fewer dollars than last year because it is losing a significant corporate gift from a company that's no longer in Stark County. She also said United Way expects employee giving to be down.

"It's challenging out there right now," she said. "As we look at still coming out of the pandemic, we're watching the inflation and just a lot of concern over the market and things like that."

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Money collected through the campaign funds a variety of programs throughout the area that focus on issues such as education, health care services and financial security.

United Way's "Other Revenue" goal, meanwhile, went up from $1.8 million to $3.4 million because of an increase in grant dollars to fund specific programming at the neighborhood level. The agency received a $250,000 grant from KeyBank earlier this year to provide services to students at Gibbs Elementary in Canton. It's part of a larger effort to address childhood poverty in Stark County communities.

In 2020, United Way and the Stark Community Foundation released a report that showed child poverty in Stark County was at a "crisis level."

One of the recommendations that came out of the report, Perisic said, was to get deeper into neighborhoods to provide services. The Gibbs Elementary program is a three-year pilot project that aims to do that.

"We're really excited about that opportunity to get closer to folks and to the neighborhood and make it a little bit easier for them to access services," Perisic said.

This year's campaign theme is "Imagine Tomorrow, Together."

Taylor Schauer, who is co-chairing the campaign with his brother, Joe, said the campaign kicked off officially in September and has been going well so far.

"As you can imagine, the last two years have been impacted by COVID, so a lot of the workplace campaigns were virtual," Schauer said. "There was an abundant amount of need, but you couldn't get in front of people, and you couldn't tell your message face-to-face."

He said this year feels like the first since the pandemic when United Way has been able to get back to in-person meetings and be more visible in workplaces around the county. United Way fell short of its 2021 goal by around $300,000, citing the challenge of not being able to connect with donors at their places of work as a barrier to fundraising.

Still, Perisic said the continued support of the community has been "humbling."

"The support for this organization and what it does throughout the county is truly humbling for those of us who work here and do this everyday, to have this kind of support, especially for 100 years," she said.

To donate or learn more about the campaign, visit www.uwstark.org or call 330-491-0445.

Reach Paige at 330-580-8577 or pmbennett@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @paigembenn.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: United Way of Greater Stark County kicks of fundraising campaign