Thank you to the Oxford Eagle for your tremendous support of United Way! Your team’s willingness to Kiss-a-Pig reflects your commitment to ensuring that all who live in L-O-U benefit from our community’s many strengths. As we at United Way get ready to kick off our 2015 campaign, we are grateful to the many businesses and individuals that contribute — whether through fun fundraisers like the Eagle’s, volunteer days like Oxford University Bank’s recent “newborn packet stuffing party,” or monetary donations big and small. Every penny counts. Every gift matters. Every donor makes a difference.

United Way works to improve lives and meet community needs by uniting people and resources. What does that mean? We bring together individuals, organizations and a wide variety of resources to make meaningful improvements in our community’s health, education, and financial stability. To do so, we fund programs, convene issue-driven coalitions, and generally help however we can — all while striving to measure our impact. Those who join us in living united include local businesses, public entities, major corporations, schools, universities, health care providers, children, students, working adults, full-time volunteers, retirees, and many more. United Way’s strength comes from our relationships.

We want to clarify two things in the Eagle’s recent piece. First, what is raised in L-O-U stays in L-O-U. In fact, 99 cents of every dollar donated stays local, unless designated by the donor for a specific nonprofit working outside of our community (a very rare occurrence, as our donors, like United Way, are committed to helping here). Second, while we do fund a wide variety of programs, including many focused on health, we are not currently funding — nor have we recently received a grant application related to — cancer research. To see a list of our current partners, please visit unitedwayoxfordms.org.

Our annual campaign kickoff, presented by Baptist Memorial Hospital — North Mississippi, will be on Sept. 16 at noon at the Conference Center. Doors open at 11:45 a.m. We hope to see you there!

Alice Ricks
Executive Director

United Way of Oxford &
Lafayette County