BC/Kzoo General
Why All This Talk About Trauma?
Editor’s note: Trauma shows up as a pervasive barrier to a person’s success in every one of United Way’s Impact areas – Health, Education, Financial Stability and Basic Needs. It’s an issue we have only begun to address over the past few years with events such as film screenings of “Resilience,” community conversations and most…
Read MoreVIDEO: ‘Living the United Way’
This month, United Way BCKR was proud to present a new video featuring Kinetic Affect that explores what United Way stands for and why we need the community to stand with us. “Living the United Way” is a spoken word piece written and performed by the local duo, composed of Kirk Latimer and Gabe Giron,…
Read MoreThat’s a Wrap for the Live United Tour
More than 20,000 Acts of Kindness Completed During Live United Summer Tour The 2019 Live United Summer Tour has come to an end, and we are thrilled to announce our road trip results. Together with more than 250 community volunteers, many corporate partners and individual donors, we have achieved our goal of 20,000 Acts of…
Read MoreMeet the 2019 STAR Award Winners
This year’s STAR Awards ceremony showed that the power of volunteerism is stronger than ever, and not limited to a single community. United Way BCKR and Gryphon Place partnered to host the first regional STAR Awards on Aug. 20 at Sherman Lake YMCA Outdoor Center, bringing together volunteers from both the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo…
Read MoreCall to Advocate: SNAP Rule Change Will Mean More Hungry Families
More than 3 million Americans, including hundreds locally, could lose food assistance under a proposed federal rule change. That means more hungry families in our region. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants to change a rule that lets some people who earn slightly over the income limit for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP, or…
Read MoreInvesting for Impact: $6.24 Million in UWBCKR Grants Drives Change
Childhood trauma, infant health, stable housing and food insecurity are among 110 area programs receiving a total of $6,247,821 in grants from United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region. Sixty programs will receive a total of $3,718,401 in strategic grants annually for three years, according to Alyssa Stewart, Vice President of Impact &…
Read MoreSee the Nominees for the 2019 STAR Awards
This year’s STAR Awards event is fast approaching, and we can’t wait to celebrate the amazing volunteers who make Battle Creek and Kalamazoo better communities every day. The public is invited to join us at 5 p.m. Aug. 20 at Sherman Lake YMCA to honor our winners, and the 40 volunteers who were nominated for…
Read MoreThank You For Being a Friend: Kellogg, UW Join Forces to Stop Bullying
Next time you’re at a middle school or high school event, take a look at the kids around you and think about this: 1 in 5 of them has been bullied. That’s the sobering fact from the National Center for Educational Statistics. Two organizations in our community are determined to shrink that number. In honor…
Read MoreGrants available for Census 2020 push
United Way is taking the lead in Kalamazoo County, working as part of a statewide effort spearheaded by the Michigan Nonprofit Association to mobilize local nonprofits in encouraging census participation among hard-to-count populations.
Read More‘On The Ground’ Partnership Harvests Tales of Impact
A neighborhood-focused news series is turning up stories of resilience in communities throughout our region—and United Way is a partner in that work. Issue Media Group launched its On The Ground (OTG) online news series in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek starting in 2018. OTG embeds locally trained journalists in specific neighborhoods to better understand them,…
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