Community programs and initiatives

United Way has a strategic belief that a strong system of quality agencies must be supported to meet basic community needs and prevention and development services. Additionally, there are opportunities to partner with other organizations to ensure public and private resources are used to facilitate community change and improve service delivery for the betterment of the region.

Programs

Dollar More and Dollar Help
Funded by voluntary contributions from Ameren customers and Ameren Corporation (Dollar More), and Laclede Gas customers and Laclede Gas Company (Dollar Help), these programs help Missouri families stay warm in the winter, cool in the summer and healthy all year long. United Way, Ameren and Laclede Gas share administrative costs of their respective programs so every dollar donated goes to people in need.

Giving is easy: if you pay your bill by mail, simply check the “Dollar More” box on your Ameren bill, or the "Dollar Help" box on your Laclede Gas bill when you return it with your payment. Visit Ameren's Web site to enroll, make a one-time donation or apply for Dollar More funds. Visit Laclede Gas' Web site to enroll, make a one-time donation or apply for Dollar Help funds.

If you need assistance paying your utility bills, please call 2-1-1, or 800-427-4626.

100 Neediest Cases
Each year, the United Way teams up with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the community to help more than 10,000 families in need. Your generous donations make the holiday season a joyous one for thousands of people in the St. Louis region. Visit the 100 Neediest Cases Web site to find out more.

Healthy Youth Partnership
A growing coalition of over 70 community organizations, Healthy Youth Partnership is designed to combat youth obesity in the St. Louis metro area by offering healthy activities, tips, resources, research and policy changes. Visit HYP's Web site to find out more.

Initiatives

Volunteers award and oversee more than $750,000 each year to facilitate United Way initiatives, which address specific issues in the United Way service area. This funding leverages millions of dollars annually to strengthen our community.

Initiatives are divided into three categories with sub-goal areas that demonstrate United Way's commitment to serving as a catalyst in mobilizing communities and influencing positive changes that ultimately will improve lives.

Quality early child care and education
Supporting quality early learning systems and services, working to ensure children are ready to succeed in school by the age of six. Contact Wray.Clay@stl.unitedway.org to find out more.

Success By 6®
United Way Success By 6® is the nation’s largest network of early childhood coalitions, focused on improving school readiness through raising awareness of the importance of early childhood development, increasing access to services and improving systems to improve young children’s lives.

Professional development opportunities
Through a partnership with KETC, 120 St. Louis Head Start teachers learned how to adopt and teach healthy lifestyles and nutritional eating habits, becoming more effective teachers and role models for students and families.

Reading readiness
The typical middle-class child is read to 1,000 to 1,700 hours before entering first grade, whereas a child from a low-income family is read to an average of 25 hours. Children who start school behind typically stay behind; there is a 90 percent probability that, if a child is a poor reader in the first grade, he or she will remain a poor reader by the end of fourth grade. Initiatives include:

• St. Louis County Library’s Preschool Outreach Reading Readiness Program
• Once Upon A Time…Exploring Fairy Tales Exhibition
• Born Learning

Access to quality care
In the time between the end of the school day and a parent’s return home, the incidents of juvenile crime, juvenile victimization by crime, and other risky behaviors skyrocket. When "After School For All by 2010" started, only 1,500 St. Louis Public Schools elementary children (less than 10 percent of all children in the City) had access to daily after-school programs. The goal is to add 5,600 new after-school care slots by 2010.

Financial stability and independence
Empowering people to move themselves from poverty to an improved quality of life, through financial education, consumer training and access to asset-building resources and supports. Contact Cassandra.Kaufman@stl.unitedway.org to find out more.

Becoming bankable
Millions of Americans do not have a relationship with a mainstream financial institution, meaning they can't cash a paycheck without high fees, earn interest on savings or write checks for fundamental living expenses. United Way funding for the Get Checking^TM program is providing partial scholarships for those with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Financial education

• Citigroup Financial Education partnership: Lacking banking services, many people turn to alternative banking services that serve the poor and economically isolated, but often charge higher fees. United Way funding means the Citigroup curriculum can reach underserved youth and the Hispanic/Latino community.
• Gateway Earned Income Tax Credit Community Coalition: National estimates say that 10-20 percent of those who are eligible for the EITC do not claim it, primarily because of lack of knowledge. The Coalition works to bring an estimated $30 million in unclaimed EITC refunds into the hands of low-income individuals and families in the St. Louis region by providing free income tax preparation services and information on asset-building programs and services.
• Intensive budget and credit counseling training for agency case managers
• Friendly Community Tax Coalition

Financial independence

• Partnership for the New Workforce: A collaboration of area employers and employment and training service providers, the Partnership brings together trained and work-ready job seekers with employers who need new workers, targeting first-time job seekers, those reentering the job market, older workers, ex-offenders, empty nesters and individuals with disabilities.
• Professionals in Transition: Working with the Missouri Career Center's St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE), United Way is providing career counseling, job placement assistance, networking, training seminars, job fairs and interview training.
• Jail diversion for mentally ill non-violent offenders
• Community Financial Access Pilot

Asset building

• Individual Development Accounts: Matched savings accounts for low- to moderate-income working families, IDAs can help families buy a first home or pay for post-secondary education or small business capitalization. Financial education and regular saving are conditions for participation. By empowering IDA participants with opportunity, information and service supports, they will acquire high-return assets that will enable them and their children to become economically secure.
• IDA program for youth aging out of foster care/homeless youth: United Way and four agencies implemented a Youth IDA project to provide financial education, credit counseling and a matched savings incentive to ease the transition to independent living. Participating youth may save up to $1,000 of their own earned income and receive a 2:1 match for a total of $3,000, which may used to purchase assets such as a car or computer; to pay for college, vocational school or independent living expenses; or to provide microenterprise development.
• Micro-lending and micro-enterprise development: Immigrants and refugees often lack the certifications, licenses or language skills required to find professional jobs for which they may be qualified. United Way helped to fund Business Links, directed by the International Institute, a United Way agency. The program serves refugees from Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Congo, Colombia, the Middle East, Vietnam and elsewhere. The businesses have demonstrated an impressive 85 percent survival rate after two years, client revenue has reached $24 million and the agency’s business clients have had an economic impact of $50 million in the region.

Predatory lending prevention and intervention
Too often, select lenders manipulate potential homeowners’ hopes and lack of education to prey upon them with high-risk loans that often include exorbitant interest rates, excessive fees and unethical pressuring tactics. The Don’t Borrow Trouble Anti-Predatory Lending Campaign works with individuals and families to provide housing counseling, answer inquiries and make referrals for legal services.

Housing foreclosure prevention and intervention
Foreclosures have risen dramatically, both locally and nationally. These initiatives focus on money management, predatory lending, refinancing and post-purchase knowledge.

• KETC Facing the Mortgage Crisis
• Metro St. Louis Foreclosure Intervention Task Force
• St. Louis Homeownership Preservation Alliance

Faith community mobilization
Facilitating, connecting and strengthening faith-based programs and services in order to link congregational resources and strengths to community needs. Contact Cassandra.Griffin@stl.unitedway.org to find out more.

Social development
United Way of Greater St. Louis has collaborated with the East St. Louis, Ill., School District's Board of Education to develop a faith-based partnership component to strengthen the system's mental health support services to students. From these forums, three initiatives were implemented.

• Sinai Family Life Center and After-School Enrichment Program: Selected students, targeted by teachers or counselors, receive one-on-one tutoring in math, reading and writing; substance abuse awareness and prevention; and computer training.
• Sons and Valor and Daughters of Promise: Students, referred by teachers or counselors to the mentoring program, participate in a curriculum encouraging academic excellence, character building, self-esteem and positive socialization skills.
• Teen Talk: Taped at Faith United Baptist Church of O’Fallon, Ill., "Teen Talk" is aired on several local cable stations. Youth discuss topics including HIV/AIDS awareness, self-esteem, absentee parents and violence.

Healthy living and nutrition education

• Hoyleton House Safe Date Program
• Anointed Feet Teen Health Wellness
• HopeBuild Garden of Eden: A wide array of health problems, including obesity and nutrition-related chronic diseases, are clustered in lower socio-economic groups. The HopeBuild Garden of Eden is a community-owned and operated produce market that provides access to healthy fruits and vegetables, nutrition education and employment opportunities for the underserved in the St. Louis community.

Academic support

• Trinity United Methodist Church/English as a Second Language
• Freedom School Program
• The Joshua Generation: A partnership to strengthen educational support services to students, The Joshua Generation offers after-school and summer camp programs and holds a "Back-to-School Rally" that provides free school supplies for 300 community children and their families.

Homeless intervention services

• St. John's Workstart Program
• Bread of Life Church Financial Literacy Program
• Centenary Church's Drop-In Center for the Homeless: Lucas Park in downtown St. Louis has become a haven for many homeless individuals. With United Way funding, Centenary Church implemented a Drop-In Center that provides meals and information about available services throughout St. Louis City and County.