UWCC February eNewsletter

Celebrate PA 211 Day

Today, February 11, is PA 211 Day, a day to celebrate the 211 service available to Pennsylvanians to assist them with their health and human service needs. The PA 211 system is a free, confidential dialing code that connects people to a wide range of services from disaster relief to utility assistance, senior citizen programs, emergency food, job counseling, youth programs and much more. It is the one-stop-shop for services available in communities across Pennsylvania.

Locally, this program is brought to you by United Way of Chester County, in collaboration with the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey and the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania. These United Ways, together with local county government and provider agencies, work to ensure important local program information is accessible through our helpline when it is most needed.PA 211 also recently launched PA 211 Counts, a live tracker of Pennsylvania’s 211 requests. To view the data of requests in your area, click here.  For more information on PA 211, click here.


Mobile Home Tax Reassessment Project Receives Award

United Way of Chester County was honored with the Housing and Community Development award for their work on the Mobile Home Tax Assessment Project from the Greater Philadelphia Social Innovations Awards. 

Greater Philadelphia Social Innovations Awards honor our region’s most passionate Social Innovators, Entrepreneurs and Changemakers whose work and social impact too often goes unacknowledged, yet their efforts are what makes our communities across Greater Philadelphia the thriving region of innovation and opportunity they are for all people.

Randy and Debbie Blough, True Crusaders of Helping their Neighbors 

“Randy and Debbie Blough, volunteers at the Honey Brook Food Pantry, learned of the problem when a client mentioned that they had purchased an older mobile home for $900 but their taxes were $1,300 – which was causing them financial hardship. After hearing of other food pantry clients that were in the same situation, Randy investigated and discovered that the only way to fix things was to go through a lengthy tax appeal reassessment process.” 

We realized quickly that Randy’s and Debbie’s efforts were something that the mobilizing power of United Way could help to scale to reach many more mobile home owners.

To read the entire article on Generocity, click here.

We are proud to partner with Honey Brook Food Pantry and Legal Aid of Southeastern PA to lead this effort. Contact us if you are interested in financially supporting this work so that we can reach 1,000 mobile home owners in 2020.


Help Share the Warmth!

Winter is here, and as harsh as it may be for many of us, there are others right here in Chester County that are unable to escape these conditions, even in their own homes. Your support can help bring better roofs, windows and heating systems to those in need.All donations are used to fund home projects by local charities that specialize in home repairs for Chester County residents.

 Since 2005, United Way of Chester County has helped many local families through the Share the Warmth program – helping our neighbors make home repairs before the most brutal months of the year come upon us. Since its inception, the Share the Warmth program has provided 537 Chester County families with over $950,000 in home repairs and winterization projects.


United Way Continues to Spread ALICE Message

United Way of Chester County was happy to present on the ALICE study to the West Chester Sunrise Rotary Club. The discussion centered around the ALICE population, what measures are being taken to support ALICE in Chester County, how this might impact United Way work in the future, and how it has helped influence our current Mobile Home Initiative.Many thanks to the Sunrise Rotary for the invitation and excellent discussion about how we can all best help raise up our community.


VITA Volunteers Ready for Tax Season

VITA volunteers will be at the United Way Financial Stability Center every Friday from 10 am – 2:30 pm until April 10 to help clients file their taxes. The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program offers free tax preparation for low and moderate income households. To learn more, click here.


Non-Profit Workshop Series – Save the Date

 Join us for our next Non-Profit Workshop Series on Logic Models, slated for March 11, 2020. More details to come soon! Through offering these workshops, we hope to provide integral information to help grow Chester County non-profits.