United Way of Pinal County, Inc.

The United Way of Pinal County brings stakeholders together to have the difficult conversations about how to address homeless and financial stability issues in the county. Pinal County is larger than the state of Connecticut with the population the size of Wyoming. Our landmass and rural population centers mean that each community faces their own unique challenges. By Listening to the communities as they describe their issues the UWPC can help develop simple, sustainable solutions that can usually be implemented with little funding. Living united toward common problems and fighting for a solution allows us to carry out the mission of uniting generosity with community needs to promote a lasting change in peoples’ lives

The strategies the United Way of Pinal County employs to accomplish work:
• Support already existing efforts
• Bring together stakeholders to address the gaps around certain topics that are not being addressed
• Develop advocacy around the topics of housing and needs for additional social service support since the county is so large
• Develop local solutions that are affordable, sustainable by the community and effective
• Develop literacy kits for kids aged 0-8 year old
• Increase early literacy by supporting reading in the home with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library
• Partake and build local homeless coalitions made of local community members and key stakeholders to drive a local impact and embed solutions into the community
• Facilitate and manage the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program
• Facilitate the Heat Relief Network to address heat-related illness during the summer months

The United Way of Pinal County is uniquely qualified to act as a neutral party in talking about large system issues since we look at a community holistically and not with a silo perspective. The United Way provides direct services to our community and is also able to broaden the scope of work by supporting agencies that are also providing direct services. We are able to bring various agencies and stakeholders together and form task forces or coalitions to collectively work toward solving a problem with viable community-based solutions.

• Developed and sustained two homeless coalitions for over 3 years
• Spearheaded the Resource Center in Apache Junction
• Received the Desert Peak Award from MAG for the Resource Center
• Brought the Project Connect system to Pinal County in Apache Junction and Casa Grande for two years in a row
• Created the countywide Heat Relief Network to hydrate homeless and provide electrolytes and heat-related illness education
• Engaged over 70 community stakeholders in donating, distributing and collecting water and electrolyte tablets for summer 2018 distribution
• Created and distributed over 600 hygiene kits, sponsored and made by community volunteers
• Prepared 1300 free taxes through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program
• Provided $1.5 million dollars in tax refunds and $430k in EITC refunds to low to moderate income households.
• Support 350-500 children in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library
• Created over 1,200 literacy kits, which includes homemade puppets