United Way campaign rolling along
Shannon Folkert was one of the teachers students selected to kiss a piglet as a United Way fundraiser for the Coshocton City School District. Contributed | Beacon
COSHOCTON – United Way of Coshocton County’s 2019 fundraising campaign rolled into 2020 on a positive note, with the organization being more than 90% to goal.
“We’ve collected $300,000 in pledges and have a lot of people giving what they can,” said Lyn Mizer, United Way director. “People have been so kind.”
The campaign goal this year is again $325,000 and the corporate sponsor is Drennen Dealerships.
“They are a tremendous community supporter of Coshocton and we appreciate their partnership with us,” Mizer said.
Many people have chosen to donate to the campaign by doing pay roll deduction and several fundraising divisions really stepped up their support this year with collecting donations.
“The public employee division hit 100% about a month ago,” Mizer said. “They had a tremendous fundraiser (which was an adult tricycle race for county elected officials) McWane is quite a bit higher this year, Kraft is doing well with donations funded just by the employees alone, and over the past five years Coshocton City School District has doubled its donations.”
Judge Van Blanchard was a participant in the adult tricycle race for county elected officials held in October 2019 to raise money for United Way of Coshocton County. File | Beacon
During the first half of the school year the district junior and senior high school students had the opportunity to vote on their choice of teachers to either kiss a piglet or love on a llama. The winning teachers chosen were Shari Lonsberry, Shelley Batchelor, Dawn Peterson, Shannon Folkert and Jim Allison.
Through this fundraiser, the junior and senior high school students raised $1,750 for United Way and its partner programs. As a district the students and staff went from collecting $6,000 in donations for the 2014 campaign to more than $12,000 for the 2019 campaign.
“United Way of Coshocton has three focus areas and education is one of those,” Mizer said. “We understand that our most valuable resource is children and we must invest in them. We are grateful to all the teachers and staff in Coshocton County who work tirelessly to teach our children life skills that will carry them into the future. We promise to put their donations to good use here as we reinvest those dollars back into Coshocton.”
They also support programs such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which puts free books into the hands of children ages 0-5.
“We recently gave out our 100,000th free book and are well over that now,” Mizer said.
You can sponsor a child enrolled in the Dolly Parton program for $25. For more information on doing that or donating to the United Way fundraising campaign, visit coshoctonunitedway.org or call 740-622-4567. Campaign donors will be honored at a breakfast scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 13.
Category: Clubs & Organizations
