The United Way of Jefferson & North Walworth Counties is launching its second annual “Season of Caring,” scheduled to run for seven weeks from Sept. 27 through Nov. 14.
“We are kicking off our 2021 campaign season focused on our theme of being ‘United For All,’ and the greatest way we believe our communities can be United For All is to generously spread kindness and caring power to as many people as they can,” Megan Hartwick, United Way executive director, said within a recent press release explaining the campaign.
“Our communities have faced very difficult times this past year-and-a-half, so we want our campaign efforts focused not only on fundraising, but on taking care of one another and showing our appreciation. We want to help people recognize the importance of community engagement and give them easy opportunities to become more involved,” Hartwick said.
The Season of Caring will consist of seven small missions completed across seven consecutive weeks. The missions will focus on the following: “Join Our Mission,” “Praise a Community Worker,” “Thank a Business,” “Commit to Volunteering,” “Be a Local Champion,” “Lend Your Support,” and “Practice Self-Care.”
There are no set requirements for completing each mission, and there is no signup or registration fee for participating, according to the release.
Said Hartwick within the release: “We wanted to make participation in this seven-week series as easy as possible. We will be offering a lot of suggestions and information that will help people determine what specific acts of caring will work best for them, but we also want community members to get creative and express themselves during these small missions.
“Mostly, we want people to remember that small, simple acts of kindness can have a huge ripple affect across communities. And I think we can all agree that our communities need as much caring power and support as possible right now.”
Suggested acts from United Way include signing up for United Way newsletters, sending a thank-you note to a health-care worker, posting a positive review about a local business, registering on United Way’s volunteer platform, reaching out to a local nonprofit to learn more about its work, delivering a home-cooked meal to a neighbor, and taking time to enjoy a favorite activity.
Any community member can participate in the Season of Caring, and United Way is encouraging workplaces to join in and use it as a team-building exercise and parents to engage their children and make it a fun family activity.
Hartwick added: “We have created specific hashtags for the week that we ask people to use any time they post their participation on social media. We’d also love for United Way to be tagged in any postings so we can help share the information.
“But mostly, we want participants to find any way to share — text your friends, post something up in your break room at work, or email your family members. We want to see this have a profound, positive impact on our communities.”
Full details for the Season of Caring, including instruction sheets for each individual day, hashtag details, Facebook images and more, can be found on the Season of Caring page on the United Way’s website at https://uwjnwc.com/events/week-of-caring/.
Hartwick said she will also be posting her personal participatory actions on her personal Facebook page.
The United Way encourages those interested to visit the United Way website and subscribe to its newsletter and to “like and follow” its Facebook page (@uwjnwc). Participants are encouraged to share their acts of caring to their social media pages along with the following hashtags: #uwjnwc #seasonofcaring #2021campaign #unitedforall.
For more information about the United Way or its programming, visit: www.uwjnwc.com or contact Hartwick: (920) 563-8880 or unitedway@idcnet.com.
The United Way of Jefferson & North Walworth Counties’ mission is to fight for the health, education and financial stability of every person in our communities. It does that by providing support to community programs, projects and local agencies that provide critical health and human services to those in need.
This network of helping services can be described as a “safety net” for those in our midst in need. Whether it is transitional housing, literacy education, after-school programs and education, health and dental care, end of life care, mentoring programs, job training or disaster relief, the United Way identifies the greatest needs in our community and helps to fund agencies that can meet those needs.
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