United Way of Central Florida

Community Impact: UWCF's premiere Community Investment Process mobilizes more than 130 volunteers on 15 teams around their focus areas of EDUCATION, INCOME, HEALTH and SAFETY NET. These volunteers visit program sites, review previous investments, program goals and outcomes, and make recommendations about the most effective way to meet critical community needs. EDUCATION: The Early Literacy Initiative helps at-risk children develop the language skills they need to succeed in school. Given the right start, children learn to read, succeed academically, and are more likely to graduate from high school. Academic Achievement Initiative helps children in grades K-12 pass achievement tests at grade level and graduate on time. FINANCIAL STABILITY/INCOME: The Financial Stability initiative helps families improve financial stability with GED and job training, credit and budgeting classes, money coaches, financial education and savings match programs. Improved credit scores, increases in emergency savings accounts, increases in job related credentials and/or increases in family income measure success. HEALTH: The Health Initiative helps people of all ages to improve or maintain good health. United Way improves access and utilization of health services and increases knowledge and personal responsibility about health issues that lead to improved blood pressure, weight control and other specific health indicators. United Way also works to reduce avoidable hospitalizations and incarcerations with prevention services and treatment for those with addiction. SAFETY NET: The Safety Net Initiative provides relatively short-term, crisis intervention services that vary widely, but meet one or more of the following: 1) Must verify that the service helped to stabilize a crisis, 2) Must refer clients to sources of on-going support (counseling, health clinic etc.) as needed, 3) Must verify quality of services using approved indicators selected by experts on a Safety Net Steering Team, 4) Crisis includes but is not limited to: health emergency, domestic violence, rape, child abuse, fire, teenaged runaways, hospice care, hunger & homelessness. END HUNGER INITIATIVE: The End Hunger Initiative helps to eliminate hunger and food insecurity by increasing the access to food and helps families to increase financial stability by decreasing food costs. * In 2020-24 our food distributions were able to provide food to 1,268,815 visitors in Polk, Highlands, and Hardee Counties. In the first three years of this initiative 9,629,415 meals were provided to communities in need. COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP SCHOOL INITIATIVE: The Community Partnership School Initiative helps to provide a full-service health clinic, financial education and academic support for Polk's first Community Partnership School. * In 2019, Crystal Lake Elementary, A Community Partnership School began operations under guidance from the University of Central Florida. Five core partners of this project are Southeastern University, Heartland for Children, Central Florida Health Care, Polk County Public Schools, and United Way of Central Florida. Crystal Lake Elementary, A Community Partnership School received statewide certification from the UCF Center for Community Partnership Schools in 2023.

Carol Jenkins Barnett United Way Children's Resource Center (CJBUWCRC), formerly Family Fundamentals, opened in November 2022 in our new location within the Florida Children's Museum at Bonnet Springs Park in Lakeland. As a community and family outreach of Success By 6 - CJBUWCRC is a parent resource center which mobilizes partnerships with more than 40 human service organizations providing parents and family members with activities, classes, reading, tutoring and other programs designed to strengthen the development of our children and family relationships.

Community Wellness: The UWCF Community Wellness initiative is a $10,160,000 grant in collaboration with the Polk County Indigent Health Care Department. Polk County is on an October 1-September 30 fiscal year. During the 2023-24 Polk County fiscal year, the grant provided a $460,000 administrative fee to UWCF, up to $500,000 to fund a team of UWCF Community Wellness Navigators, and $9,200,000 to fund behavioral/mental health and prevention/early intervention programs through an open Request for Proposals (RFP) to 501(c)3 organizations. The navigator program's main purpose is to assist in connecting eligible Polk County residents with the Polk HealthCare Plan and additional community resources.

OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES: Disaster Relief: Provides immediate assistance and long-term recovery support in the event our community needs urgent disaster relief. UWCF develops partnerships to address the many challenges and/or emergencies that our community faces. UWCF meets with partners to coordinate the efforts of government, businesses, non-profit and faith-based organizations involved in disaster response. UWCF continues to respond to disasters through food security efforts and other assistance. With the support of local partnerships, UWCF was able to provide the following support: * The United Community Relief Fund was formed in partnership with GiveWell Community Foundation in 2020 to provide COVID-19 pandemic response. In the wake of Hurricane Ian in 2022, over $259,600 was distributed to nonprofits and their clients suffering direct losses as a result of the storm. This fund was not activated during the 2023-24 fiscal year. * Publix Super Markets Emergency Relief provided $363,720 to support individuals who have experienced hardships due to various emergencies where other assistance is unavailable. This fund will also be providing Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton relief across multiple states in the 2024-25 fiscal year. * 2-1-1 referrals have remained high due to increasing needs faced by citizens of Polk, Highlands and Hardee counties: including the housing crisis, inflation of all goods, supply chain woes, fuel prices, childcare crisis, and staffing shortages. Success By 6: Success By 6 (SB6) mobilizes volunteers from local organizations, businesses, government, churches, civic groups, educators and human services to ensure that all children, by the age of six, have the physical, emotional, social and mental foundation to succeed in school and in life. Since 1995, UWCF's SB6 has focused on early literacy to help children enter school ready to succeed. In total Success By 6 programs placed over 56,000 books in the hands of children in FY 23/24. In addition: * 103 Parent Lending Libraries were in childcare centers serving low-income families; with 22,974 books checked out. * To increase awareness of the importance of early childhood education, Born Learning, a $90 million early childhood awareness campaign developed by the Ad Council, Civilian provided more than 300,000 messages to citizens of Central Florida. These included bus signs, billboards, newspaper advertisements and parent education materials placed in key locations throughout the area. Success By 6 events and staff provided 6,173 pieces of Born Learning and other literature into our community. * Dolly Parton Imagination Library mails a book each month to the homes of preschool children. 25,844 books were placed in the homes of 2,500 children ages 0-5. * Let's Grow is a Success By 6 initiative facilitated by UWCF to improve language skills of children at-risk of school failure. Language skills predict the ability of children to learn to read. Of middle/high income children, 8 of 10 enter school with the skills they need. However, only 2 of 10 low income children have sufficient skills. Children who enter school ready to succeed, learn to read and graduate on time. Let's Grow partners provide early literacy interventions improving vocabulary scores by an average of 5 months for every 1 month of exposure to the interventions. Master Teacher: An outreach of Success By 6 school readiness - the expanded Master Teacher initiative targets neighborhoods where children considered at-risk for school failure reside. It provides an internship for childcare instructors using three Master Teachers along with parent education classes to help the instructors and parents to prepare children to enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Readiness skills for children in classes with teachers trained by a Master Teacher improved an average of 3 months for every 1 month with the newly trained caregiver. 2-1-1: The 2-1-1 program provides information and referrals to families/individuals and community groups concerning local services and resources. 2-1-1 also identifies gaps in services; assists in creating remedies to meet local needs; connects individuals/families to resources; and advocates on behalf of individuals/families for access to resources. It also works to provide better service, accessibility and information to the Hispanic community. * From July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024, 211 received 39,565 contacts for services through calls, chats, texts, e-mail inquiries, and database searches. In addition, there were over 93,000 webpage views for end hunger, 211, CJBUWCRC, free tax prep, and other needed community resources. Women United - ReadingPals: In Spring 2012, UWCF received a first-year grant to begin ReadingPals. Planning and implementation include collaborations with Polk and Highlands County Schools, the Early Learning Coalition of Polk and Learning Resource Center. From 2012-2020, Carol and Barney Barnett invested over $8,500,000 in 17 regions throughout the state of Florida to improve early literacy. ReadingPals focuses on engaging, training and deploying volunteer tutors to increase the number of students reading at grade level by the end of 3rd grade. It is important to our community, to the Barnetts, to all businesses and families in Florida that we make a united effort to reduce the close to 50% of children who are not reading at grade level. In 2023 the program secured 156 volunteers and served 374 students at 15 schools. This year, we have secured 201 ReadingPals volunteers serving 402 children in 14 schools.