Tragic events don’t always happen somewhere else. Sometimes they happen right here in our community—be it natural disasters, violence, or a piece of a global pandemic. What we’ve learned is the value of approaching the next crisis in a more powerful, collective way.

United Way BCKR and its community partners have a solid track record of coming together to respond quickly when a crisis strikes, be it the mass shootings in 2016, historic flooding in 2018, violent storms in 2011, the economic downturn in 2009, and many more. Those experiences led United Way, along with public and private supporters, to seed the Disaster Relief Fund in 2019. Through the fund, United Way also helped Gryphon Place set up a Community Resilience Program and partnered with Community Response Consortiums in Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties.

It was none too soon; COVID-19 created a huge need for the fund and the partnership.

“We activated the fund in March 2020 after the first executive orders,” said Alyssa Stewart, Vice President of Impact & Engagement. “With public schools ordered closed, access to food was an immediate concern. Many children from low-income families lost a key source of quality meals. Pretty quickly we saw rising demand for shelter and basic living needs. We also saw nonprofits that are part of the social safety net start struggling to keep up with the demand, largely because their own operations were affected.”

The community took notice and took part. The Kalamazoo Community Foundation, which maintains a Community Urgent Relief Fund, partnered with United Way to respond to the growing need. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek Community Foundation, Stryker, Kellogg Company, Harold & Grace Upjohn Foundation, Binda Foundation, Miller Foundation and many more, plus hundreds of individual donors, lifted the fund to $1.73 million that in turn went to dozens of local agencies. See the list here.

Having fully invested its resources, the Disaster Relief Fund went into standby mode in August. As weeks passed and the pandemic continued, a number of donors helped to replenish the Fund, Stewart said. By late 2020, both United Way and the Kalamazoo Community Foundation launched a second activation of their crisis relief funds.

Meanwhile, United Way BCKR continues to support communities and organizations still facing challenges from the pandemic—providing resources for homeless individuals through the Kalamazoo County Continuum of Care, offering flexibility on grants to partner agencies as they shift focus to pandemic needs, and accelerating with partners the work of Catalyzing Community Giving to engage communities of color in Battle Creek. This work is in addition to United Way’s ongoing investments and partnerships.

“Our mission to lead shared efforts covers the spectrum from immediate help to long-term solutions,” Stewart said. “Having resources on hand to respond quickly to a crisis is especially important as we serve the most vulnerable in our region.”

What can you do? Making an unrestricted financial gift to United Way allows us to strengthen both our crisis response and our long-term impact work. Please consider making an online gift. You can make a one-time donation, an ongoing monthly gift, and even “round up” your daily purchases. Visit our Donation page.