Tag Archives: Give. Advocate. Volunteer.

Stuff The Bus

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This school year, many children will lack the supplies they need to enter the classroom ready to learn. Help United Way of Salt Lake Stuff the Bus with school supplies for children served through United Way of Salt Lake’s neighborhood Community Learning Centers. These Centers, located in schools and other easy to access locations, work daily with the youth of Davis, Salt Lake, and Summit counties to improve academic achievement, reading, and development. Supplies collected will be stuffed into backpacks and delivered to over 15 school locations on United Way of Salt Lake’s annual Day of Caring, September 8.

School Supply Drives: July 1- August 25

Drop-off Location: 175 S. West Temple, Suite 30

Supplies Needed:
backpacks, pencils, pens, paper, notebooks, pocket folders, 3-ring binders, markers, colored pencils, glue, scissors, highlighters, and rulers.

For more information go to uw.org

A Utah Food Empire Grown From Beans

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By Jennifer W. Sanchez
Community Collaborations Director

Jorge Fierro dropped out of college in Mexico to head to el norte because he wanted something more. He had no idea he’d later become a strong supporter of United Way of Salt Lake (UWSL) and its annual Day of Caring. Each year more than 3,000 people participate in UWSL’s Day of caring by volunteering in dozens of community-service projects.

Fierro has been in Utah for 26 years, and he’s elated to be a part of the community. “I always had a fascination to come to the United States,” said Fierro, the second eldest of eight children and the son of a rancher and small business owner. Fierro entered the United States as an undocumented worker. He worked as a sheepherder, dishwasher and bus boy. In June 1985, Fierro moved to Utah alone. He stayed at the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake then at the Road Home Men’s Shelter for a month. Fierro worked at temporary jobs, from construction to roofing, to make ends meets. He later lived at St. Mary’s Home for Men, a Catholic Community Services of Utah program.

Fierro said he enjoyed living in Salt Lake City, but he missed Mexican food and was “disgusted” by the refried beans in a can. “I thought, maybe I can sell beans to these gringos,” he said. In 1997, Fierro started selling frijoles de la olla (pinto beans) at the city’s Farmer’s Market. A year later, he opened Rico Market and eventually started catering. In 2000, he started selling Rico Mexican food products in stores. “I never thought I would sell beans for a living,” he joked.

When he started catering UWSL events more than 10 years ago, Fierro recognized that several of the community agencies that helped him were funded by UWSL to provide services. Since then, he’s been a UWSL investor by providing food and space. He specifically gives because he loves the work of the UWSL Women’s Philanthropic Network (WPN), a group that invests in immigrant and refugee integration in Utah.
“I realize how important the philosophy of United Way is for people like myself,” he said. “It’s something I can do to help a group of women that’s helping my people.”

Advocacy: Use Your Voice

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By: Elizabeth Garbe
Community Impact Director of Public Policy

On Wednesday I made my monthly trip to the Capitol to listen to legislators discuss and debate a variety of issues. Some of these issues will have no impact on me, my family, our community or UWSL’s over all goals. Other issues though could have a profound impact on all four. Every day, if you listen to the radio, watch the news or read the news paper, you are bombarded by the political fighting over the national budget. What all of this reminds me of is the need for people to be involved in the political process. This doesn’t mean that everyone needs to join a campaign, hit a picket line or attend interim committees on the Hill. What it does mean is that each of us needs to take the time, if we haven’t done so already, to get to know our elected officials.

I have always found that the relationships I form help me to achieve my goals. Upon reflection, it is the relationships I did not form, for whatever reason, that could have been really useful. One of the key components of advocacy is relationships. Since the legislature is not in session, now is the best time to get to know your representative and senator. Let them know who you are, what matters to you, your family and our community. While it is their job to represent you, it is the relationship you form with them that will put you in a different category from all the other people that they hear from and represent during the session. Instead of being only a constituent (which is powerful in itself), you can be a resource. Does that mean that your representative will always vote the way you want them to? No, but it does mean that you have their ear. By reaching out to them now, your voice will carry more weight when tough decisions must be made.

Here is a roster of Utah’s House members and Senate members. The legislative website has a great tool to find out who represents you.

UWSL Internal Campaign

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By: Andy Livingston
Systems Administrator

Hey everyone, it’s Andy. I’m the Systems Administrator here at United Way of Salt Lake, and have been working here for three years now. This year, I had the opportunity to help organize our internal fundraising campaign. A committee of eight staff members worked feverishly to put together three days’ worth of activities, all geared toward helping United Way with its mission to improve lives and build strong communities. Being able to do this at our organization helps me to realize how much work goes into planning a successful campaign, and helps me to appreciate the many organizations that partner with us and put on similar campaigns even more. We want this to be a way to show our community that United Way of Salt Lake’s staff is just as committed as we ask our organizations’ employees to be.

Our theme this year was “Change,” since so much focus here at United Way has been on our transition to a Community Impact model, not to mention our work to change people’s lives for the better. To highlight this theme, one particularly fun activity/contest we arranged was dividing the staff into teams, giving them a team piggy bank, and seeing who could collect the most change throughout the week. The winning team turned in over $500 in change! I guess with a paid day off as a prize for the winning team, the competition was bound to be fierce.

Other highlights of this incredibly fun week included a staff potluck, watching our favorite “Office” episodes, and a day at Lagoon. Our day at Lagoon culminated in our very own Rebecca Dutson and Jason Castor being launched in the Catapult, and the always exciting opportunity drawing. Throughout the week, staff members purchased opportunity drawing tickets for the chance to win one of three prizes: $200 in Visa gift cards, a new laptop, or <drum roll> an all-expense paid trip for two to Atlanta, GA! The opportunity drawing tickets alone brought in almost $2,000 in contributions. Congrats again to April Harrison, who won the trip, and many thanks are due to the generous individuals who supplied not only these prizes, but the many items we were able to sell at our silent auction (which raised an additional $2,000).

It was a very busy, but incredibly fun week. We even surpassed our goal of $43,000. I anxiously await next year’s campaign!

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Closing Out The Fiscal Year with Change, Collective Impact, and Community Collaboration

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By: Jason Castor
Senior Vice President of Resource Development

As I reflect back on our 2010/2011 fiscal year that concluded on June 30, 2011, a song by David Bowie comes to mind…Ch-Ch-Ch – Changes. This year, preceded by the previous nine, has represented significant change for United Way of Salt Lake as we’ve adopted and implemented a collaborative approach to community problem solving called Collective Impact. This process required collaboration among community groups including business, faith-based, non-profit, government, and education.  It also required in-depth research, Board leadership, a committed and dynamic staff and of course, monetary resources. And, without the latter, our vision of a community where all individuals and families achieve their potential through education, income stability, and healthy lives would not be possible.

It’s on this note that I’d like to extend a special thanks to our staff not only for their tremendous commitment to our community but also for their incredibly generous financial support. We just concluded our 2010/2011 internal employee giving campaign, with the theme of “CHANGE,” and I’m very proud to say that we had 100% participation and our team of 37 employees raised $45,467 dollars to further our work in the areas of education, income and health! The success of our employee giving campaign would not have been possible without the incredible support of our fearless leader, Deborah Bayle, the leadership of our dynamic chair, J. Andrew Livingston, and his outstanding committee that included, Courtney Archer, Vicki Bingham, Alison Cundiff, Megan Jones, Iuliana Petrescu, Linda Turkington, and Cristi Wetterberg.

I’m very touched and humbled by the generosity and commitment of our staff…kudos to each and every one of you all that you do in support of UWSL!