Records are being broken this year at the United Way Day of Caring, said Amanda Newman at the event’s kick-off breakfast.
Volunteers from across Evansville gathered together to give back to their community at the annual Day of Caring, put on by the United Way of Southwestern Indiana on Friday.
“We have over 1,000 volunteers and 69 agencies that are participating, which are the highest numbers we’ve seen in the 22 years that we’ve been doing this,” said Newman, director of communications and marketing at United Way.
The Day of Caring is a yearly event where organizations and businesses in the community donate their time to volunteer for local non-profits.
Newman said the volunteer work people did with United Way for this day was incredibly helpful to nonprofits, because they don’t have the funds to pay for many of the tasks completed that were otherwise seen as nonessential.
“When you get this many people in a room and deploy out to that many agencies, a lot happens in one day,” Newman said. “I don’t think there’s anything like this day in the community and that’s what makes it so special.”
A team of employees from the university went out and volunteered their time with Arc of Evansville, one of the nonprofits participating in this event. Kindra Strupp, assistant vice president for Marketing and Communications, said her team wanted to participate as a team-building exercise.
“Community service has been a part of USI’s mission for 50 years and being able to get out into the community and really do some hands-on work with my colleagues was quite rewarding,” Strupp said.
Danielle Norris, web content specialist for University Communications, said there are a lot of worthy organizations in the community without funds to pay workers to get simple tasks done, such as organizing closets, cleaning and landscaping.
“I definitely think it’s important to help people who need help because no one else is going to,” Norris said.
At the breakfast Friday morning it was announced that through United Way, companies raised $1.4 million in honor of the Day of Caring.
Dr. James Porter, chief medical officer at Deaconess Hospital, considers himself blessed and said participating in the Day of Caring is a great way for him to give back to his community.
“We at the United Way have a unique opportunity to raise money through people’s work place and so that makes us a pretty powerful force in being able to accomplish change in our community,” Porter said.
Porter, chairman of the board for United Way South Western Indiana, said that this event should matter to college students because college-aged people tend to struggle while trying to get their feet on the ground.
“It’s possible that many college students will find themselves, at some time, needing the resources that the United Way or the agencies of the United Way supports,” Porter said. “That’s our goal, to help people like struggling college students get on their own two feet and be in a position where they can then be contributors to other people’s needs.”
Porter said that while in college, students tend to feel busy. However, once students finish school and look back on it, they realize that there is no other time in life when they have more available time to do something productive and meaningful.
“Helping other people is the most important thing we can do in life,” Porter said.
Terri Bischoff, director of Creative and Print Services, said she is thankful she got the chance to work with the Arc of Evansville Friday because they do so much for the disabled community.
“To give yourself and your time, it can make such a difference,” Bischoff said, “It can give people a better feeling to think beyond themselves.”
