• Our Child Care Provider Appreciation Day event is on Friday, May 12 at 9:00 a.m. to celebrate our community’s providers. Join us at the Neighborhood House, 201 N. 25th Street, Louisville.
• We are continuing to work to identify a UofL Master of Public Health student to support Metro United Way’s work in the early care and education space.
• Partnerships with our Ages & Stages (ASQ) initiative are being explored with Bright By Text, Know the Signs Act Early, Help Me Grow Indiana, and Indiana Start. These new partnerships will help support a statewide grant proposal currently under development.
• Referrals from Norton Broadway, our ASQ’s first pediatric partner, are ramping up. After just two weeks we have received referrals for 10 children.
• Our ASQ team recently received a call from a family we have been working to support for a few years. The mom has decided that she would like to pursue her GED. We connected her to JCPS continuing adult education through United Community.
• Our Ready for K Alliance team is working on creating a referral list of doulas in Jefferson County to support birthing parents in gaining access to their preferred birthing supports.
• Our Ready for K collaboration has received a second round of investments of our Russell Child Care proposal.  This initiative will implement a Community of Practice (CoP) model dedicated to improving the quality, availability, and accessibility of child care and early childhood development that is culturally responsive and based on the expressed needs of the providers it will serve.
• We will be announcing our Youth Success investments in May – more coming soon!
• Our Youth Success network now has 111 organizations and growing!

• A new SummerWorks program in Southern Indiana launched this week with support and investments from Metro United Way.

  

• Our first cohort of Black entrepreneurs through our new partnership with FundBLACKFounders will be announced on Tuesday, May 9! More details to come. This initiative will include coaching and support to assist with training, capacity-building, raising capital, and identifying customers.

  

• If you would like to support Black-owned businesses in our community, learn more about our partnership with FundBLACKFounders by visiting HERE.
• Our Volunteer Income Tax Assistance(VITA) volunteers wrapped up the tax season by serving over 7,000 individual tax filers and bringing back over $9 million in refunds to members of our community.

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• Our Coffee Chat with Adria took place in Harrison County on Thursday, April 27, with 20 community leaders in attendance. United Community was the topic of conversation. The call to action was for these community leaders to assist in promoting United Community with the goal of increasing participation and utilization. We have already received a provider commitment and have been invited back to present to another community group in July.

  

• Save the date for two United Community events: Lunch & Learn on Thursday, May 18^th and Convening on Wednesday, May 31. Register HERE and HERE. This convening will highlight policies and efforts that aim to combat the housing crisis and create opportunities for policy change guided by data evidence and informed by the needs of the communities, and the organizations working to serve them.
• Our Farmers Feeding Families RFP closed and we are finalizing investment recommendations to six organizations in Shelby County to fight food insecurity.
• Mayor’s Give a Day: A Celebration of Service ended on Sunday, April 30 after a full month of individuals giving back to our community through volunteerism. It isn’t too late to log your service HERE.
• We distributed 1,200 Healthy Snack Kits that 80 volunteers from Fortna in Bullitt County made this month.

  

• MUW’s 42 Little Free Libraries are in need of books. Books can be gently used or new. Click here to learn more about what types of books we need and accept.
• We are currently recruiting members to our Community Impact Cabinet from Shelby, Oldham, and Bullitt Counties. Please reach out to robert.gunn@metrounitedway.org if you or someone you know may be interested in this volunteer opportunity.