Community Focus, Spring 2023

COMMUNITY FOCUS

United Way of South Wood & Adams Counties' Quarterly Newsletter

Winter | vol. 10 no. 2

LET'S WEATHER ALICE TOGETHER

Ben Eberlein, Community Engagement Director

We all know people who are ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — earning more than the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), but not enough to afford the basics. ALICE is your child care worker, cashier, health aide, office assistant, general laborer… all essential to our community. Across Wisconsin, the actual cost to live in each county (represented by the ALICE Household Survival Budget) is well above the FPL – meaning the people we rely on every day are barely getting by.

With the FPL as our nation’s primary threshold for need, ALICE

households generally earn too much to qualify for assistance programs, despite struggling to make ends meet. In 2021, 93% of eligible Wisconsin households received FoodShare, yet less than ¼ of ALICE households benefitted. This helps explain why the percentage of ALICE households continues to grow, while poverty has remained consistent.

The recently released report, ALICE in the Crosscurrents: COVID and Financial Hardship in Wisconsin, shows a dramatic increase in Wood County’s ALICE households: in 2019, 32% were living in financial hardship; and in 2021, a staggering 40% — the 3rd highest increase among Wisconsin counties.

While unemployment remains low, increases in costs of basics like housing, groceries, and child care have simply outpaced wage

increases. In Wood County, 8 of the top 10 jobs paid less than $20/hour in 2021 – even after an average 9% wage increase over the previous year. Based on this data, income for a typical family with an infant & preschooler and both adults employed full-time would fall short of the Household Survival Budget by over $4,000.

This family and all ALICE households face impossible choices every day, like paying for child care or rent. When close to half of our

community struggles to make ends meet, we all feel the impact. Learn more about ALICE and how United Way is taking action – attend an upcoming presentation:

June 22nd – McMillan Library All Purpose Room, 10:00am

June 22nd – McMillan Library All Purpose Room, 4:00pm

June 27th – Adams County Community Center, 9:00am

STUFF THE BUS

The school year is quickly coming to a close and students are ready for summer! We are ready for summer here too but for us summer brings lots of planning for next school year. We are in the middle of planning our annual Stuff the Bus school supply event happening in August. Each summer, we ask our extremely generous community to help stuff an actual school bus with donated school supplies.

Last year we served a record number of over 900 students. We expect this coming school year will be no different. We can help our local families tackle this expense by supporting this great community event.

School supplies will be collected on Thursday August 3rd during Lunch by the River from 11:30am – 1pm at Veterans Park in Wisconsin Rapids. Local businesses, churches and organizations will have drop boxes available for you to donate or bring those collected supplies right to us on August 3rd and we will stuff them in the bus!

If you are a family in need or you know one, please register on our website www.uwswac.org before August 3rd. Registrations are taken on a first come first served basis and timeslots are filling up quickly.

Thanks again to our amazing community and the many people who help us make this event such a success for our students year after year. We truly appreciate it. You can drop off or send monetary donations to United Way at 351 Oak St Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494. Checks made payable to United Way.

HELP GUIDE 2023

United Way of South Wood & Adams Counties is proud to once again offer the Help Guide for South Wood County 2023. This guide gives people a look into the resources our area has to offer those in need. It can help with questions like “Where is the local food pantry?” or “Where can I donate items we no longer need?”, and “Who can help me with my utilities or rent?”.

The Help Guide was recently distributed to all elementary school students in the Wisconsin Rapids school district, Nekoosa school district and Port Edwards school district. It was additionally distributed throughout the community to churches, gas stations, organizations and many other places of business.

The Help Guide for South Wood County is supported by grant funds from Incourage and is a yearly publication. If you or your business distributes information to those in need and would like to have some Help Guides, please contact the United Way office by calling 715-421-0390 or by email at taylor@uwswac.org.

Individuals in need of Help Guides can contact the office to pick one up or have one mailed to you. Guides can be picked up at the United Way office Monday-Friday, 8:30am-4pm at 351 Oak St Wisconsin Rapids WI.

There is also a new 2023 Help Guide for Adams County that is available to download from our website.

CATCH UP WITH WOMAN UNITED

Thank you to all of the women who attended Power of the Purse 2023, we raised a record $9,585 for literacy and early grade learning in our community! Also, to all who worked behind the scenes and the night of the event to make POP so successful, we are forever grateful. We are already looking forward to 2024!

We were so fortunate this year to have 25 volunteers be part of the Learning for Life Reading Mentor Program. These dedicated community members visited the same elementary school classroom each week throughout the school year to help students in kindergarten through 3rd grade improve their reading skills. THANK YOU for helping us create lasting change in the lives of over 200 of our local youth. Are you interested in being a reading mentor next school year? Watch our website for more details late summer.