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United Way seeks more community input

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By Tiffany Y. Latta, Staff Writer Updated 8:44 PM Saturday, August 22, 2009

HAMILTON — The Butler County United Way will host another Impact Council Summit Saturday, Aug. 29.

The event calls for the public to come together to identify problems and develop ways to solve them.

United Way officials held the first summit on Aug. 18 with about 80 representatives from area businesses, schools, nonprofit and government agencies.

Among the problems identified: lack of transportation, affordable housing, education, jobs and the growing number of working poor.

United Way President Maureen Noe said officials decided to hold a second forum to give more people in the community a chance to be heard.

“We want everybody’s voice to be heard ... We want to make sure we’re hitting the right issues,’’ Noe said.

The idea for the summit — to be held from 8 a.m. to noon at the OSU Extension Office, 1802 Princeton Road — was derived from an initiative by the Dane County United Way in Wisconsin 10 years ago.

First on Dane County’s agenda was the reading gap between white and minority third-graders. They studied ways to tackle it, raised funds to develop programs for students and eliminated the reading gap in five years.

Denise Sommers, Butler County United Way resource development specialist, has said she hopes the local United Way and area residents can have similar success as resulted in Wisconsin.

“We think we’ve made a difference in a variety of ways but it’s been scattered and through a variety of agencies. This will allow us to focus on an issue, get to the root cause, find a solution and show that it’s working,” said Sommers.

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