Community Impact Grants:
Community Impact Grants prioritize United Way resources on the needs that matter most to the people of the Northern Shenandoah Valley. Those giving to the United Way Community Impact Fund have the assurance that their gifts cover a broad but focused spectrum of identified needs in the community, rather than just supporting one particular program or agency. The results from these investments are closely monitored by trained volunteers. Investments in the United Way Impact Fund are monitored, leveraged, focused, and achieve outcomes.
- Monitored - A diverse group of trained volunteers invest money into programs that report how they use money to improve lives.
- Leveraged - United Way and funded programs leverage United Way funding in services that prevent additional costly services, and bring additional funding into our community.
- Focused - United Way only funds programs that are successfully and efficiently filling a need for local residents in the areas of Education, Income, and Health.
- Outcomes - The Impact Fund guarantees that your donated money is changing lives. Programs must show the long-term outcomes that they are achieving.
Education Impact Grants
Investing in our Children (Education): Helping children and youth achieve their potential.
Funding Priorities:
1. Basic Needs: Children have access to basic needs
- Provide basic needs support to children and families in crisis
- Help children who face neglect or abuse
- Promote positive parenting and healthy child development
2. Early Learning: Preschool aged children have access to affordable, high quality, early learning programs that prepare them for kindergarten
- Provide tuition assistance for families unable to afford a quality preschool education
- Promote high quality learning programs that prepare children for kindergarten
3. Youth Support Programs: Students have access to high quality, enriching out of school programs where students have support and encouragement from engaged parents, advocates and mentors.
- Increase the availability of quality before and after-school care for school-aged children and youth
- Ensure access to age-appropriate mentors and other academic supports
2022-2023 Education Impact Grants
Grant Amount: $1,500
Purpose: To provide free art kits to youth in Winchester and Frederick County.
Priority Needs Addressed: 3
Grant Amount: $8,000
Purpose: To support the childcare facility's physical fitness program, music, and art therapy programs.
Priority Needs Addressed: 2
Grant Amount: $7,650
Purpose: To provide Safe Sleep Survival Kits and car seats to families in need.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $18,000
Purpose: To support the Campaign for Grade Level Reading to help improve literacy for children and expand the Dolly Parton's Imagination Library program.
Priority Needs Addressed: 2,3
Grant Amount: $2,000
Purpose: To support the summer camp program in partnership with The Kids Clubs of Northern Shenandoah Valley.
Priority Needs Addressed: 3
Grant Amount: $2,200
Purpose: To provide supplies for the Teen Art Club to help youth achieve their creative potential.
Priority Needs Addressed: 3
Grant Amount: $10,050
Purpose: To provide scholarships for summer camp for local preschool and school-aged children.
Priority Needs Addressed: 2, 3
Grant Amount: $10,000
Purpose: To provide tuition assistance for lower income working families in need of childcare.
Priority Needs Addressed: 2
Financial Stability Impact Grants
Creating Economic Opportunity for All (Income/Financial Stability): Helping families in our community become self-sufficient and move from financial instability to financial stability.
Funding Priorities:
1. Basic Needs: Support our most vulnerable neighbors by providing them access to basic needs supports.
- Expand availability and access to safe, adequate shelter for individuals and families struggling with homelessness
- Ensure availability and access to healthy food and essential personal care items
2. Housing: Families have access to a continuum of housing solutions that provide safe, decent and affordable housing options.
- Ensure the availability of short-term emergency rent and utility assistance with a focus on prevention efforts
- Support programs that provide critical home repairs for qualifying homeowners
3. Employment: Identify and remove the gaps and barriers that currently exist for individuals to enter the workforce and attain and retain family sustaining employment.
- Connect households with affordable transportation options
- Improve access to quality, affordable childcare
- Improve literacy and job skills
4. Financial Stability: Create opportunities for families to move from financial instability to financial stability.
- Support a coordinated and integrated comprehensive Resource and Referral System (VAN) that helps connect and navigate people to critical community resources and services
- Provide case management, tools and resources to support families in becoming self-sufficient, and ultimately, financially secure
2022-2023 Financial Stability Impact Grants
Grant Amount: $10,000
Purpose: To provide walk-in service in Winchester for Centralized Housing Intake to connect people experiencing homelessness and a time sensitive housing crisis with resources.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $2,500
Purpose: To support the Home Fire Campaign and assist disaster clients with immediate financial assistance.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $36,000
Purpose: To support the Critical Home Repair Program and improve the health and safety of owner-occupied homes.
Priority Needs Addressed: 2
Grant Amount: $19,000
Purpose: To provide free legal assistance to low-income/ALICE households for civil matters, including preventing evictions, accessing financial assistance and public benefits, and providing trauma-informed legal assistance to victims of domestic violence.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2
Grant Amount: $20,000
Purpose: To support the Emergency Assistance Program that provides rent and utility assistance to households in the Northern Shenandoah Valley.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2
Grant Amount: $24,200
Purpose: To support people experiencing domestic and sexual violence by ensuring their basic needs are met and removing gaps and barriers to employment.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 3
Grant Amount: $15,000
Purpose: To support the Utility Crises Fund and provide utility assistance to get families stabilized and prevent loss of housing.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2
Grant Amount: $20,000
Purpose: To support the Pay it Forward program that addresses unmet needs in the community, including eviction prevention, car repairs, phone bills, and relocation expenses.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2, 3
Grant Amount: $18,000
Purpose: To support the Scatter Sites Housing Project (SSHP) that provides housing and case management services to families in Shenandoah County.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2
Grant Amount: $10,000
Purpose: To support the Special Delivery Project and reduce food insecurity by providing bags of nutritious food to seniors and disabled individuals.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $15,000
Purpose: To provide immigration legal services to the most vulnerable immigrants in the Winchester area, with a focus on those who are eligible for citizenship or work authorization.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 3
Grant Amount: $24,000
Purpose: To support the emergency shelter, support services, and advocacy that provides the wraparound services to help victims of domestic and sexual violence.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $8,200
Purpose: To support the Benefits Planning program so individuals can receive accurate information about their SSI/SSDI or Medicaid/Medicare benefits and be empowered to make informed financial and employment decisions.
Priority Needs Addressed: 3
Grant Amount: $10,000
Purpose: To assist domestic and sexual violence survivors with securing housing, transportation, childcare, and other resources to regain stability.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2, 3
Grant Amount: $7,000
Purpose: To purchase a commercial refrigerator for the Frederick County Senior Center to support the Meals on Wheels program.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $7,500
Purpose: To support A Small Hand, which provides diapers and wipes to families in need, and The Good Shepherd, which provides bags of hygiene, cleaning, and paper products to senior citizens in need.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $10,000
Purpose: To provide safe, warm, cold-weather shelter for adults experiencing homelessness.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Health Impact Grants
Building Healthier Communities (Health): Helping individuals live quality lives & achieve maximum health and independence.
Funding Priorities:
1. Access to Care: All households have easy to access and ample, affordable, high quality, preventative, immediate and follow-up health and dental care.
- Improve access to necessary health care services and those that reduce barriers to receiving and accessing health care services
- Increase access to affordable, high quality and regular dental care
2. Trauma Informed Care: Households have access to the necessary supports to address the negative effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), violence and physical hazards; communities support people’s health, safety, and development.
- Support an equitable community-wide system of trauma-informed care, provides accessible evidence-based treatments from trained, knowledgeable, and culturally literate specialists in adequate supply
- Reduce intimate partner violence, domestic violence, and child abuse
3. Behavioral Health: Households will demonstrate improved behavioral health by reporting better mental health and a reduction in substance abuse, and reduced stigma that is a barrier to care.
- Ensure a continuum of services exists to meet behavioral health needs
- Provide immediate and adequate access to substance abuse services for those who are in crisis
- Expand community awareness and reduce stigma associated with having mental health and substance use disorders
2022-2023 Health Impact Grants
Grant Amount: $7,500
Purpose: To support the Early Pregnancy Care Stopgap Program by providing early pregnancy care, education and support.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $25,000
Purpose: To support the Grief and Loss Support Services Program by funding supplies and the Children's Bereavement Camp.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $25,000
Purpose: To conduct evaluations for abuse, risk assessments (ACEs), trauma screenings on children, and providing mental health treatment services to child abuse victims and their non-offending caretakers in Winchester and Shenandoah County.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2, 3
Grant Amount: $24,750
Purpose: To provide comprehensive, collaborative, and free trauma-informed Child Advocacy Center services for child victims of sexual abuse and their non-offending caregivers in Page County.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2, 3
Grant Amount: $5,000
Purpose: To help promote training sessions that help families and caregivers have a better understanding of the world of those living with dementia.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $20,000
Purpose: To support the Peer Recovery Specialist Mobilization Program that connects individuals in our community who are living with addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders to Certified Peer Recovery Specialists.
Priority Needs Addressed: 3
Grant Amount: $4,500
Purpose: To support the random drug screening of student athletes and drivers in Page County high schools to ensure youth are staying drug free and identify youth who are in need of intervention services.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 3
Grant Amount: $41,000
Purpose: To support a mental health counselor for students at Shenandoah County Public Schools.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2
Grant Amount: $21,000
Purpose: To provide dental care for low-to moderate income uninsured patients, including exams and x-rays, hygiene treatments, fillings, and tooth extractions.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1
Grant Amount: $35,000
Purpose: To support the primary care clinicians who provide medical care to underserved families.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 3
Grant Amount: $10,000
Purpose: To support the Side-by-Side Recovery program that provides peer recovery support and case management to adults with substance use and mental health challenges in Shenandoah and Page counties.
Priority Needs Addressed: 1, 2, 3