By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Volunteers for the United Way of Greater St. Joseph gathered together for the first time in two years, to kick off the allocation process.
Director of Community Investment Jodi Flurry says many people may know United Way because of its annual fall fundraising campaign.
"What a lot of people aren't familiar with is, what happens to those dollars? What happens to that money that's raised through the annual campaign?" Flurry tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "Well, we have volunteers who review the agencies and make recommendations on how those investments should be made."
Flurry says after not being able to gather together like that the last two years, it was great to see so many people come out.
"Interact, engage, get to know each other, and learn more about United way and the allocations process," Flurry says. "It's going to help build the foundation for what they're about to do."
Flurry says the six sub committees that make up the allocation committee will meet over the next seven weeks to discuss how money should be split up to the 17 partner agencies that United Way supports.
Flurry says so many of the volunteers come back year after year to help with the allocation process, because they enjoy what they are doing.
"While it may be challenging, their role as a volunteer, they enjoy the process, they enjoy working with the other people on their sub-committee, and they really like working with the partner agencies," Flurry explains. "Getting to know agencies that they may not have any other opportunity to work with and then possibly getting involved with them beyond that."
Flurry adds volunteers that help with the allocations process get to see the direct impact that their contributions make on the community, saying that some have volunteered for more than 10 years.
