CHAR-EM UNITED WAY INC
PO Box 1701, Petoskey, MI 49770 www.charemunitedway.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Uniting the people and resources of Charlevoix and Emmet Counties to build strong communities. Communities where individuals and families achieve their potential through education, income stability and healthy lives. To this end, Char-Em United Way serves as a catalyst to develop new strategies and services to meet currently unmet needs. Char-Em United Way also provides financial and other support to effective health and human service programs which meet identified community needs, serves as the local administer for the Federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program, coordinates volunteers for community organizations, provides prescription discount cards, and advocates for area citizens. Char-Em United Way fights for the education, health, and financial stability of every person in Charlevoix and Emmet Counties. United We Fight - United We WIN

Community Investments - these are grants made to those agencies that meet our criteria for well-run and effective agencies and that run programs addressing local issues in our focus areas of education, financial stability and health. Char-Em United Way is driving community change through early childhood programs and services, with a strong focus on supporting and reducing the number of ALICE households in our county area. EDUCATION - Helping young children (0-8) achieve their potential. Outcomes: Children exit preschool with age appropriate skills in all developmental domains (cognitive, social, emotional, gross motor, fine motor, language) including early literacy skills, and third graders reading at grade-level proficiency. FINANCIAL STABILITY - Providing a safety net for families to help ensure basic needs are met. This includes working with local businesses on recruitment and retention of families struggling to get by month to month. Outcome: A reduction in the number of ALICE households in our two county area, and assuring families have support for basic needs including food and shelter. HEALTH - Improving health of children and their families. Outcome: Ensure access to health care services including preventative and behavioral health. Young children have access to healthy foods and physical activity.

Other Programs - Char-Em United Way advocates in Charlevoix and Emmet Counties for the resolution and removal of barriers to employment and financial stability. Issues such as affordable housing, public transportation, and affordable childcare are being addressed. Char-Em United Way provides financial support and coordination of programs such as Stuff the Bus, which provides school supplies to local students in need. We sponsor an annual Day of Caring and a Day of Action, coordinating volunteers to complete large projects at local non-profits and coordinating volunteer readers to deliver literacy kits and read to children in preschools, respectively. During the past year, our VISTA employee provided support to local schools through our Education Initiative. They assessed via survey, local schools' need for volunteers to identify needs that volunteers can address specific to Math/Literacy. They served to strengthen schools volunteer recruitment with Volunteer Connections technology, provide training and support to staff as needed, and organized a literacy training for volunteers in local schools. Additionaly, they worked to increase the local volunteer base overall and specific to educational initiatives. Promote volunteerism in youth, via Michigan Student Service Award participation, career fairs, high school quiz-bowl events and more. AmeriCorps Vista Volunteers also provide info for Literacy/Education volunteers about the impact of their work in relation to academic engagement of students in low achieving schools.

Dolly Parton Imagination Library - Char-Em United Way serves as the local affiliate for this national program run through the Dollywood Foundation. The program provides books to children ages 0-5 free of charge to the family. An age appropriate book is mailed monthly to the child's home from the time they register until their fifth birthday. 1,481 children in the two counties have been served by this program in the last year. 50 children graduated out of the program last year; 200 more were added. The cost of the books and promotional material is covered fully by Char-Em United Way through local donations and fundraisers. The cost averages between $25-30 per child per year. Locally, Char-Em United Way launched the project for children in Emmet and Charlevoix Counties in August 2012. It is proving to be extremely well received, with new registrations occurring nearly every day. In addition to providing books, we invite all families to family literacy activities and provide additional resources throughout the year to reinforce their efforts to build language and literacy skills through a bi-monthly electronic newsletter. The short term outcome of DPIL for our community is to positively increase the literacy skills and kindergarten readiness of Emmet and Charlevoix County children. The longer term outcomes are to impact 3rd grade reading proficiency which, in turn, will result in higher high school graduation rates and adult success for the children.

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Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202041889349300544_public.xml