CHENANGO COUNTY – Chenango United Way worked with the community throughout 2020, continuing services to people in need, raising funds for local nonprofits, and successfully leading COVID-19 response efforts.
According to Chenango United Way Executive Director Elizabeth Monaco, 2020 was an incredibly difficult year for nonprofits in the area, but with incredible generosity from its community they were able to continue providing services to the people in need.
Monaco said some of the focuses for the organization include education, financial stability, and health.
She said those goals are met in part by United Way’s work with local nonprofits, and many of the people who are struggling are working class families known as ALICE families.
“ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and these are families that earn more than the Federal Poverty Level, but less than the basic cost of living,” said Monaco. “Combined, the number of ALICE and poverty-level households equals the total population struggling to afford basic needs.”
In 2020, Chenango United Way raised more than $428,000 and funded 19 programs along with four community impact initiatives.
Monaco said those funds help people in need all throughout Chenango County, and all donations received stay local.
“We are local, and will always be local,” she said. “This year’s campaign was really tough, in December we were at about 60 percent of our goal, but we managed to reach 95 percent with some incredibly generous last minute donations.”
“Campaign is always important because our organizations rely on it every year, but this year to have raised just under $140,000 on top of that for COVID relief is incredible.”
She added that Chenango County continues to prove to be a really caring and generous area, even when the times get tough and there’s a global pandemic.
“We were asked to open the COVID relief fund literally the week that the governor shut everything down, and we were shocked by the number of requests we received when we did,” said Monaco. “We’ve done disaster relief funds in the past, but this one was by far one of our largest.”
Monaco said to help determine the greatest needs in the area, Chenango United Way teamed up with multiple other organizations to create the Chenango Area Recovery Team (CART). She said the team was initially formed in 2006 and reused after major floods occurred in the area, but that it proved to be incredibly beneficial for COVID-19 response as well.
“Anyone who is dealing with COVID community needs meets each week as part of the CART team, and we discuss everything from recent changes from the governor’s office to growing needs in the community,” she added. “I really loved to watch people reaching out to collaborate with each other, sharing volunteers, sharing resources, and figuring out ways to help one another.”
“That for me has been amazing and probably the most engaging part of the year.”
Monaco said it was rewarding to see groups that don’t traditionally work together, teaming up to figure out how to deal with this pandemic.
She said specifically at the United Way offices, at the start of the pandemic they started to receive phone calls from people who needed food but couldn’t afford it or were worried about being infected.
She added that as the demand started increasing they worked with Roots and Wings to help meet it, and that some of the food needs were also assisted by the Cooperative Extension and SUNY Morrisville.
“Our community was in rough shape before COVID hit, and this pushed ALICE families over the edge,” said Monaco. “The food issue is still with us today, people are still struggling to get all of their bills paid.”
“Some people have been downsized job-wise, meaning they’ve lost hours, which leads to falling behind on bills, and it’s especially hard if people have gotten sick.”
Monaco said it’s going to take a long time for the Chenango County community to recover from the pandemic.
“When 40 percent of your community is the working poor, anything that comes in and shakes things up like this virus situation is going to make things much harder on them,” she said. “The last ALICE report showed the numbers are improving, and I think that has to do with increased education along with organizations increasing their minimum wages.”
She added that no one knows how much the next ALICE report will be impacted by the coronavirus, but that the impacts of the virus will likely be felt for years to come.
Chenango United Way Business Manager Victoria Mitchell spoke about the difficulty of being a nonprofit in 2020, with several organizations closing their doors due to lack of funds.
“Nothing this past year was expected, it was just a really hard year all around, and most people were trying to make everything work from home,” said Mitchell. “Raising funds was incredibly difficult because we weren’t able to reach most people like we have been in years past.”
“With people working from home we weren’t really sure if people would donate. I knew that the community had the financial ability to do it, but I didn’t know if we were going to be able to reach employees like we have in the past.”
She said fortunately Chenango United Way was able to continue providing services to people, and she helped in that role by answering phone calls and for awhile delivering goods to people’s homes.
“I’m shocked at the living conditions of some of our residents in this community, and how they’re surviving and living day to day,” she added. “We had a lot of people who needed food, but food kitchens and other providers in the area couldn’t provide it due to the shutdown.”
“So we worked with others to make sure if you needed food because you were quarantined, you could request it, and so many people stepped up to be volunteers even with the risk.”
Mitchell said people in Chenango County want to be kind, and they want their community to be strong. She said there were many new people who reached out because the pandemic had hit their family hard and they needed help.
She said all of the initiatives they’re a part of are still happening, they’re just happening in a new way.
“It’s still business as usual at the Chenango United Way,” she added.
According to Monaco, one of the greatest strengths of Chenango United Way is its ability to adapt to the needs of its community, and 2020 showcased that skill well.
“We really like that our organization is so flexible, and while we did have a full business plan, we couldn’t accomplish all of it because of COVID,” Monaco said. “That’s fine though, because we were responsive to the community and we did what we needed to do to make sure the COVID needs of the community were met.”
Two new Chenango United Way board members were added in 2020, Jennifer Telesky from NBT and Megan Carnachan from Blue Ox.
“They’re both young professionals who were born and raised here, so they’re going to bring a really new perspective along with new ideas to the campaign,” said Monaco.