Join us for our 2025 IMMIES Awards!
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 // Angel’s Envy Club at L&N Stadium
There’s nothing more important than ensuring our community’s children have what they need to thrive. LEARN MORE
- On November 4, our Youth Success team successfully engaged 8 young people from the Book Works to review Youth Social Action Project (YSAP) grants. This was a productive and rewarding experience in which the young people selected the awardees for this grant. Be on the lookout for the announcement of who will receive these grants.
- The Youth Success team is completing interviews with three different stakeholder groups (young people, youth-serving providers, and mental health providers) as part of the design thinking process for our mental project with the Children’s Hospital of LA.
- MUW’s Youth Success team hosted a listening session of 30 Youth Success Network members in conjunction with our Policy and Advocacy team to better understand barriers, aspirations, and future engagement opportunities for Out-of-School Time (OST) programs.
- Metro United Way staff attended the CDC’s annual CLPPP (Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program) conference at the CDC in Atlanta to learn more about best practices to address lead and connect with other communities/organizations doing lead poisoning prevention work. Our team is currently working to distribute Louisville’s Lead-Safe Strategic Plan to key community leaders and partners, with the work of the strategic plan launching in January 2025.
- Metro United Way has been asked to serve on the Louisville’s Thrive by 5 board as well as Advisory Council, continuing to support work in our community focused on bringing universal pre-k to 3 and 4 year olds.
- Our Ages & Stages Developmental Screening Hub team is helping to ensure that every child in Jefferson County who is eligible for Kindergarten is registered on time by the JCPS deadline of December 20, 2024. Along with this, the team also attended a Norton Hospital open house to help spread awareness of all the Developmental Screening Hub offers.
- We recently received the following from a mother whose child is enrolled in our Ages & Stages Developmental Screener program:
- “These are always so wonderful so I can be sure he’s doing okay! It’s a nice peace of mind for a worrisome mom.”
- As the Ready for K Alliance is evaluating its role in Louisville’s prenatal-to-5 space as well as our coalition partners’ engagement in Ready for K Alliance programs and meetings, we asked partners how the Ready for K Alliance adds value to our community and the work partner organizations are doing:
- “Ready for K and Metro United Way are trusted partners; our joint work on initiatives helps us serve our community in more meaningful ways than we could do alone.”
- “Working with the group amplifies our advocacy efforts and creates a stronger more unified approach to addressing lead exposure. This can lead to broader community action and policy changes that benefit all children”
- “Participating in R4K has helped us provide professional development to staff that work on Kindergarten readiness and EC development with our participants. We have been able to grow our knowledge base and also collaborate with other organizations to advocate on best practices when working with the immigrant and refugee communities in Louisville.”
- “It extends our reach to more childcare programs, allows us to work in collaboration with other agencies supporting childcare and use our knowledge and resources to enhance the lasting impact of their work with programs, and helps us complete a big piece of our mission by engaging with community partners to increase equitable access to high quality childcare that meets the needs of all families.
- “We are able to stay connected and share resources and events across organizations.”
- “I have made connections with different community members/resources to improve opportunities for the children and families we serve.”
- “Our participation in the Ready for K Alliance has really helped our program gain more awareness and clients. We have seen a significant interest in our program from the general public.”
When families have what they need, they can break cycles of poverty and work toward a better tomorrow for future generations and our entire community. LEARN MORE
- Metro United Way is delighted to be bringing on two new partners to support our efforts to promote financial, housing, and educational stability of families through the Siemer Institute partnership. Beginning in January, Catholic Charities of Louisville and Goodwill Industries of Kentucky will be joining our service provider network which provides long term coaching and supports for families with children to stabilize and then to thrive.
- Our workforce financial coaching initiative is continuing to demonstrate positive impact. Through October, 302 clients have been served of whom:
- 224 have had more than one session and 158 (71%) have shown progress towards financial goals in one or more areas related to income, savings, credit, and debt.
- 43 have increased income by a median of $9,100 annually
- 112 have increased savings by a median of $700
- 71 have increased credit by a median of 24 points
- 85 have decreased debt by a median of $1,700
- In the month of November, United Community:
- Served 299 total clients
- Sent/Received 189 referrals
- 93% of cases received were closed/resolved
- To learn about upcoming 2025 United Community events and to register, please visit metrounitedway.org/united-community-events
- In the month of November, our 2-1-1 help referral line fielded 630 calls from members of our community. The top request categories were housing and shelter, followed by help with utilities.
We envision the Greater Louisville region as a place where zip code doesn’t determine destiny and everyone has the opportunity to grow into their full potential. LEARN MORE
- Our Black L.O.V.E. (Live, Own, Vote, Excel) Philanthropic Partnership cohort met on December 5th, 2024. This session focused on advancing cohort goals and reviewing progress in allyship, leadership, and philanthropy.
- Through our United Neighborhoods initiative, we recently hosted a grantwriting workshop at Metro United Way, facilitated by Brown-Forman and Heaven Hill. This workshop provided essential tools for writing competitive grants and securing funding for community projects. We will continue to offer such developmental opportunities to help organizations strengthen their capacity.