In past years, volunteers have painted houses, cooked and served meals, installed wheel chair ramps and provided general assistance for nonprofit organizations that could use your help.  Many local companies allow their employees to participate in Day of Caring as a way of giving back to the community and as a team-building experience.  And, United Way donors are given a first-hand opportunity to see how services supported by the Community Fund aid people in need!

This year, Day of Caring will be held on September 15th.  For information, Contact the United Way office at (360) 423-5320.

Upcoming Events:

• 2011 Campaign begins on September 16, 2020
• Day of Caring September 15, 2010
• Volunteer training September 8, 2010
• Proposal opens on November 15,2010
• Proposals due on January 15, 2011
• Grants made March 2011

Each volunteer receives a stipend of $1,100 per month and at the end of their service will receive a $6,000 education award.  United Way began the first AmeriCorps grant with the assistance of then State AmeriCorps Commissioner Paul Youmans.  After Paul’s retirement from the Commission we have been fortunate enough to have another great advocate on the Commission, County Commissioner Alex Swanson.

Because United Way only has 1.5 staff, we entered into a subcontract with then Residential Resource, now Life Works, to manage the program and AmeriCorps staff.  This arrangement has been a great success over the ten year we have operated.  Cowlitz County has the distinction of being the largest State Formula grant awarded in Washington State for the past five years.

For more information go to www.americorps.gov.

You’d like to donate to charities just by clicking around the Internet as you always do. GoodSearch is a search engine that splits its advertising revenues 50-50 with charities and schools.

The desire to lend a hand is increasingly becoming an aspect of corporate citizenship. GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo!-powered search engine which donates 50 percent of its revenue to the charities and schools designated by its users; its spin-off, GoodShop.com, is an online shopping mall that donates a percentage of each sale to user-selected charities.

Imagine if every time you logged on and looked up the caloric content of the snack you just ate, you earned money for charity. With each search you launch on goodsearch.com, about 1 cent goes to the charity or school of your choice. You simply select an organization from a database of thousands or add your own, then tell all your friends, tell your friends to tell their friends and so on. If 1,000 people with the same charity search twice a day for a year, the charity earns $7,300. Wanting to harness for mankind some of the cash advertisers throw at search engines ($6 billion last year), founders Ken and JJ Ramberg partnered with Yahoo!