Our Shared Legacy: Two Centuries of Partnership

Mission Health Employees

 

 

Duke Energy Employees

As leaders within your organization, you understand the importance of being agile. The ability to adapt and overcome lies at the heart of success - both personal and professional. Over the past 2 ½ years, this is a lesson we’ve all had to learn. And it’s been a long hard row for everyone. Yet here we are, still standing with the same common purpose that binds us together — building a brighter future for the community where we all live, work, play,  and raise our children. We know this bond is inescapable. Why? Because regardless of circumstances beyond our control, we still have the shared responsibility to roll up our sleeves and dig deep for the betterment of future generations. Now more than ever, we need each other.

Side by Side

As we move into our 2nd century of service, United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County is committed to doing just that, adapting to meet the needs and new challenges that our community faces. But we can’t do it alone.  

For over 100 years, companies like yours have stood shoulder to shoulder with us, helping our community to weather the storm by raising the needed financial resources to tackle our most challenging issues. Throughout:

  • You've opened your doors, allowing us to share our story with your employees. 
  • You've given your time, your voice, your people power, and your financial contributions. 
  • And you've made an impact on the lives of our neighbors. 

We don’t pretend to have all the answers. There are no silver bullets. What we do have is a focused strategy for our work over the next century, and the established partnerships to bring it to fruition. Today, we are asking you to join us.

The Next 100

Education As the Great Equilizer

We believe when students succeed — graduating from high school ready for a career or college — our community succeeds. From increases in federal, state, and local taxes, spending, and car and homeownership to decreases in health care spending, the societal benefits of graduating with a high school diploma are immeasurable. As adults, graduates are 3 times LESS likely to live in poverty, 6 times LESS likely to be incarcerated, and live on average 9 years LONGER.

We also know that when the circumstances into which people are born — such as their race, ethnicity, ZIP code, and socioeconomic status — predict the likelihood of decreased access to social and economic mobility in life, it has a rippling negative effect on our communities. 

Education and equity are inseparable and key to our vision of a united and resilient community where everyone belongs and everyone thrives. But success is too often undermined by issues such as hunger, homelessness, violence, poor health, inequity, and other social problems. This means that the “opportunity gap” — the gap that exists between white students and students of color and between students who are not economically disadvantaged and those who are — isn't just a school-based problem, it is a community responsibility.

With your support, we’re working to address these issues.

AAAAAn Unprecedented Opportunity

 The United for Youth Network (U4Y) was formed to address these and other barriers that prevent ALL children and youth from learning, growing, and thriving in a vibrant and connected community. Powered by collective impact — a strategy that brings together diverse partners across multiple sectors to tackle complex problems together, with United   Way serving as the “Backbone Organization” — U4Y partners pursue a common vision through aligned strategies, with a shared commitment to supporting and holding each   other accountable for a single Bold Community Goal: 

 By 2035, all Asheville City and Buncombe County students graduate from high school ready and fully prepared to pursue their goals and dreams.

 Each and every one of us is affected by this issue. Today, we’re asking you to invest in the future of our community.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Our partnership with the business sector has a long and rich history, producing an array of impressive and impactful programs that have greatly benefited this community. Things such as our grant program, which lets us invest in critical programs and services throughout our community. Our volunteer center supports local nonprofits and connects our neighbors to ways they can give back. And our NC 211 team connects people to critical community resources 24/7. 

Moving forward we will enhance these core strategies in two key ways:

  • Utilizing our community school strategy as the organizing framework for elevating student success, supporting families, and engaging communities throughout Buncombe County.
     
  • Centering community voice by building authentic relationships, participation, and trust across the community, particularly in communities of color and those with lived experience of poverty, marginalization, and injustice. We will do this through an ongoing series of Community Conversations designed to help us reach our Bold Community Goal. 

This is our DNA, both past and present. We invite you to explore the effect of this work in our community today by clicking the elements below.

AAAAThe community school strategy serves as United Way’s central contribution to the United for Youth Network. United way’s role in this growing network is to serve as the overall “Backbone Organization.” Part of this role is investing in the work of other partner organizations supporting this strategy. These key recipients of our community investments (known as our hubs of service contracts), bring to bear a unique element that ensures the success of the overall community school strategy. 

One such element is School-Based Health Centers. A partnership between Asheville City Schools, Buncombe County Schools, MAHEC, Buncombe County Health and Human Services, and United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County, with Blue Ridge Health serving as the primary medical provider, School-Based Health Centers are fully functioning clinics that are placed inside an existing school. 

Students and their families rely on school-based health centers to meet their needs for a full range of age-appropriate health care services, typically including:

  • primary medical care
  • mental/behavioral health care
  • dental/oral health care
  • health education and promotion
  • substance abuse counseling
  • case management
  • nutrition education

Students can be treated for acute illnesses, such as flu, and chronic conditions, including asthma and diabetes. They can also be screened for dental, vision, and hearing problems. With an emphasis on prevention, early intervention, and risk reduction, school-based health centers counsel students on healthy habits and how to prevent injury, violence, and other issues.

We invite you to support explore more about this exciting new element of our community school strategy.

AAAA

There is no more recognizable program associated with United Way than NC 211. As we come to the close of our Centennial anniversary, we believe it’s worth taking a look back at how businesses like yours have helped to shape this critical community resource, thereby ensuring that our neighbors have a place to turn to when they need it. 

In the early 1970s, the Junior League of Asheville formed a volunteer services bureau and a 24-hour Information and Referral helpline with support from our United Way. By 1978, these two services were folded into our day-to-day operations and centered as important tools that connect people to ways to give, and find, help.

A service that relied at first on a Rolodex of handwritten numbers soon became a reference book that every local service provider kept at their side. In the early 1990s, we set up mobile information sites throughout the community. In 2000 we worked alongside other NC United Ways to petition the NC Utilities Commission to designate 2-1-1 as a dedicated statewide Information and Referral number. And in 2008 after successful advocacy efforts with cellular carriers, former Buncombe County Commissioner, Nathan Ramsey, made a ceremonial first cell phone call to NC 211 at a press conference in our boardroom. We formally joined forces with United Way of North Carolina (UWNC) in 2001, and eventually became the call center for our western counties. 

Today, we are proud to assist tens of thousands of callers throughout Western North Carolina. And as we move forward, the 211 professionals staffing our Asheville call center will expand their community service footprint from 16 counties to 50, continuing our shared legacy of helping fellow North Carolinians access critical services.

AAAAFor over 15 years, organizations like yours have understood the importance of, and the need to invest in volunteerism as a means to help our neighbors. And if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that citizens volunteering to help one another can have an incredible impact. 

Throughout the pandemic, as households struggled to meet the most basic needs, United Way pivoted its volunteer strategy to focus on food insecurity, providing volunteer support to Buncombe County and MANNA Foodbank’s Community Engagement Markets.

And now with rising grocery, housing, and gas prices, these markets continue to help ease the pressure being felt by Buncombe County households. For many in our community, no-cost healthy meals and information about County and partner services and resources are valuable lifelines. Buncombe County’s Community Engagement Markets offer free food, medical services, and information about mortgage, rental, and weatherization assistance, as well other resources directly to those most in need by meeting them where they are.

United Way is proud to provide the needed volunteers that make these markets thrive. These and other volunteer opportunities are made available to our corporate partners as a way to help them increase their employee engagement strategy. Check out United Way’s volunteer center, Hands On Asheville-Buncombe’s site to discover more.

AAAACommunity Conversations are not a new concept for United Way. We used this process - engaging and gathering feedback from the community - to help focus our efforts in establishing what would become our community school strategy. 

However, with the help of community, what we’ve begun to understand is that while no one can predict the future challenges our communities will face, we do know that to confront them effectively our neighbors who are most impacted by poverty and injustice must be active participants in co-creating solutions to reach our shared Bold Community Goal.

Our mission is to create a series of safe environments where community members most affected by poverty, injustice, and the impacts they have on student performance, feel free to give authentic and honest feedback whereby we can identify the core issues preventing students from graduating from high school ready for college and career. The purpose of these conversations is to listen to, learn from, and work with our community, building the necessary relationships that allow ALL voices to be heard. We invite you and your employees to learn more about these engagement opportunities.
 

Tell us about your plans for partnering with United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County. Fill out the fields below following the prompts, and hit the submit button. Thank you for all you do to support and sustain this place we all call home.

Status message

Sorry… This form is closed to new submissions.

Your continued support ensures that our community continues to receive the help they need when they need it. Today, we’re asking you to invest in both current and future generations.