Career Services

Highest-ever fundraising total for United Way
Dave Flaherty, Lindsay Post

LINDSAY - Despite not quite reaching its goal for the 2009 campaign, the United Way for the City of Kawartha Lakes has raised it highest total ever.

The agency announced it has raised $447,737.34 so far at its 'touchdown' event on Tuesday at VCCS Employment Services in Lindsay.

United Way executive director Penny Barton Dyke said the campaign will continue to climb with one last event Saturday at 7:30 at the Lindsay Recreation Complex.

It will be a fundraising hockey game with the Protectors playing the Lindsay Pastimers. The total was unveiled by a group of local children who were able to build a basketball court in their neighbourhood with leadership and support from the United Way.

Barton Dyke told the group gathered at the touchdown it was fitting to hold the announcement at VCCS. "This is where people start to raise their confidence and get a different career path," Barton Dyke said. "It's just a prime example of the commitment of our agencies."

There are some misconceptions about the United Way, including that it only serves Lindsay or money raised for the campaign is then shipped off to Toronto, she said. "Money raised in the City of Kawartha Lakes stays here," Barton Dyke said. She was proud to able to say the local United Way receives only 9% to 13% of its capital money from fundraising.
The government mandates not-for-profit organizations should run at a 20% rate, and most run at 25%, Barton Dyke said.

To drive home the impact United Way agencies can have, the touchdown event featured guest speakers.

One was Debbie Hamilton, who spoke about how her son Cameron has benefited from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kawartha Lakes-Haliburton. Hamilton lost her husband to cancer which was quite hard on her son, she said. "He was grief-stricken and left with a hole in his life," Hamilton said. "He was holding onto memories of his dad." Hamilton said she realized she was unable to fill both roles of father and mother, and her son needed a positive male role model in his life. He was soon matched up with a Big Brother named Wesley. "Wesley has become family and the positive role model Cameron needed," Hamilton said. "Without the United Way, agencies such as Big Brothers Big Sisters would not be such a large part of the community."
-dflaherty@thepost.ca