United Way promotes Red Nose Day
Mar. 14—HIGH POINT — The United Way of Greater High Point is asking residents to band together this week to fight child poverty.
And it's a chance to have a little fun.
The local United Way is joining the Red Nose Day social movement to end child poverty by requesting donations of food items and/or monetary gifts to aid the United Way BackPack Program in feeding food-insecure children.
Red Nose Day, which is Friday, originally was organized by Comic Relief in Britain in the 1980s as a way to end child poverty and world hunger. During the campaign, you may see area charity workers and others wearing red foam clown noses to promote the initiative.
To participate in Red Nose Day, you can drop off donations at the United Way office at 815 Phillips Ave. You also can participate remotely by donating money online at www.unitedwayhp.org or shopping at Amazon using the BackPack Program Wishlist, which will have items sent right to the United Way.
The BackPack program currently serves more than 1,900 local children throughout the year by providing meals on weekends during the school year and also during the summer. For Red Nose Day this year, items donated for the program will go directly to help students at 21 schools, after-school programs and food pantry locations in High Point and the surrounding area.
According to the United Way, this year will be particularly important as 900,000 North Carolinians lost their emergency food allotment funds at the end of February from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at a time when food costs have increased. The allotments had been provided during the coronavirus pandemic but the extra benefits have been discontinued.
"Previously we have had great participation from our community and truckloads of kid-friendly food donated," said local United Way President Jane Liebscher. "We hope to see the same generosity from our community again this year."
