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What's Happening at United Way?
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Ways to Volunteer with United Way: One Day or One Year
United Ways across Pennsylvania facilitate opportunities for neighbors to help neighbors and for whole communities to come together and make things happen. Whether you want to dedicate one day to volunteering or an entire year, your local United Way has opportunities for you.
Day of Caring is hosted by United Ways across Pennsylvania. It's a single day of service where teams of volunteers are connected with local non-profits and service projects. Volunteers working together can make huge impact that lasts all year round. It's an excellent way to share your talents and fit service into your busy scheduled. Contact your local United Way to learn about upcoming scheduled Day of Caring events.
For those who are looking to make intensive change in a community, AmeriCorps might be for you. AmeriCorps recruits volunteers to dedicate a period of time up to a whole year to community service. These volunteers make a huge impact while gaining skills for themselves and earning money for school. AmeriCorps has three programs:
- AmeriCorps NCCC: Teams of young adults (18-24) join up to travel the country and complete direct service projects. There's a subset of this program that focuses on FEMA disaster recovery efforts.
- AmeriCorps State & National: Volunteers engage in a diverse range of service projects at local, regional, and national organizations to address critical community needs of disaster services, economic opportunity, education, healthy futures, environmental stewardship and veterans and military families.
- AmeriCorps VISTA: Volunteers go where the need is greatest: to communities facing poverty, inequity, and unemployment. VISTA members serve in a professional setting building partnerships, writing grants, and organizing volunteers. Above all, VISTA members are catalysts for change, working to advance local solutions.
If you're interested in joining AmeriCorps or want to learn more about the program, click here.
Federal Policy
Updates
This September has been an extremely busy month for Congress. From the Supreme Court nomination hearings to the Sept. 30 deadline to approve spending for the next year, Congress has had a lot going on. United Way has been monitoring the progress of the Farm Bill and the appropriations throughout the month and we have some updates that you may be interested in.
Congress was able to come to agreement on a proposal that would provide full-year funding to the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor, and provides a continuing resolution for short term funding for the rest of the Federal Government until December 7.
This is the first time in two decades that Congress has cleared this particular spending bill before the September 30 end-of-the-fiscal-year deadline. The President has pledged to keep the government open and is expected to sign the funding bill into law.
The bill includes many wins for the health, education and financial stability of our communities, including:
- HEALTH- A $2.7 billion increase in funding to fight the opioid epidemic and new initiatives for maternal and child health.
- EDUCATION- Support for child care, special education, and afterschool programs, specifically:
- A $50 million increase for primary source of U.S. federal funding for child care subsidies for low-income working families, and funds to improve child care quality.
- A $200 million increase for Head Start
- A $10 million increase for the only federal funding source dedicated exclusively to supporting local afterschool, before-school and summer learning programs.
- A $50 million increase for a program which provides child care for mothers in school.
- FINANCIAL STABILITY- Investments to fund apprenticeship grants, career and technical educationstate grants, and an increased maximum Pell Grant for postsecondary education.
With respect to the Farm Bill,
b
oth the House and Senate have passed versions of the bill, which are vastly different, and required a conference committee to be formed to work out final details. The United Way network has largely been supportive of the bipartisan Senate version on the bill and are hopeful this will be the final version to come out of committee.
Congress is not expected to vote on the final Farm Bill conference report until after the midterm elections in November. Farm bill negotiators will continue to hash out the differences in October in the hopes that they can reach a final compromise and be ready for a vote soon after the election, although the reality is that this could slip to later in November or to December. Despite the lack of resolution, Congress does not plan to pass a temporary extension after the Farm Bill expires on September 30th. That said, SNAP will continue to operate in its current form and participants will have uninterrupted access to SNAP benefits.
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PA United Ways in the News
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UPCOMING UNITED WAY
EVENTS
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UWP 2018 Board Meetings
December 12
Check Out What Your Local United Way has Going On
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LIVING UNITED IN PENNSYLVANIA
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United Way of Pennsylvania (UWP) is a state association representing our 48 member United Ways and United Funds across the Commonwealth.
UWP's mission is to assist and champion the efforts of local United Ways in advancing the common good.
Primarily UWP's work consists of government relations work on the policy issues affecting PA's communities in the areas of health, education, and financial stability. In addition, UWP works with our local United Way members to support their efforts and offer support to their mission.
Visit United Way of Pennsylvania's
website
to learn more about how local United Ways are working to advance the common good.
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