United Way of the River Cities

United Way distributes funds to human service organizationa through a competitive grants process. Organizations apply for funds in spring, volunteers review the applications and make recommendations to the board of directors, which approvesthe final funds distribution by june 30. Funded partners provide semi-annual reports on their work, including their progrss on outcomes. Funds are awarded to support a saefty net of services, and for strategies that address critical community issues.

Uwrc's education initiative is a community collaboration that works on a continuum to ensure that children succeed. Early childhood efforts focus on early brain development and preparing children for kindgarten through the sucess by 6 and brain under construction zone programs. Education matters addresses dropout prevention by focusing on successful transitions into middle and high school, by deploying americorps mentors in the middle schools to work with at-risk youth.

Prevention empowerment partnership (pep) is a community coalition that works to reduce local substance abuse with strong collaborative and community ownership, using awareness, education and community-wide solutions. Pep works to raise community awareness, provide substance abuse education, increase community access to substance abuse prevention information and promote efforts to decrease risk factors and increase protective factors for cabell county youth. Pep works closely with cabell county schools on prevention efforts.

Uwrc conducts fundraising year-round. Fundraising events are generally held in the spring and/or summer. the annual workplace campaign is conductged in the fall. Funds raised through the year are distributed to the community through the grants process. Volunteers assist with the fundraising events and the workplace campaign. Therefore, fundraising expenses are kept to a minimum through the use of volunteers and other in-kind support.