United Way’s focus on health includes our connection to one another as well as our physical and mental health. 

Access, prevention, and utilization of quality health care services are significant challenges for individuals, families, and communities as a whole.  But a community’s health is not defined by good physical and mental health alone.  The health of a community increases as connections between individuals, families, and neighborhoods grow and deepen.  People live longer, healthier lives when they are connected with each other.  And neighborhoods, cities, and towns change for the better when people are informed, connected, and concerned with the affairs of their community.

Civic Engagement Goal

1. Increase civic participation, access and empowerment across the life spectrum for people in the region, especially those who face barriers to engagement.

Results

United Way’s work in Civic Engagement seeks to help people connect to others through volunteering and by getting involved in the civic life of their community. United Way sponsors Days of Caring, an annual week long event that matches thousands of volunteers from throughout the region to local programs and people who need their help. We also promote community dialogue on important issues, like early care and education or economic opportunities in the region, and help to provide nonprofit agencies training and support to build engagement strategies.  United Way provides financial support to organizations that are working to engage residents in the life of the community, such as community revitalization efforts in New Haven, community gardens that promote green space and connect neighbors, opportunities for older adults to reduce social isolation and increase feelings of self-worth through leadership development and volunteering, and community organizing and training for New Haven youth.

 Result: More people are actively engaged in the community. 

• Older adult volunteers supported building children’s literacy and decreasing social isolation: tutors provided 5,219 hours of service to 347 students in Hamden elementary schools; older adults worked with 75 youth in Orange.
• 440 residents attended 46 civic engagement events (including dialogues, deliberative forums or storytelling events).
• 43 residents were trained as volunteer facilitators to be deployed at community dialogues and deliberations.
• 1,500 volunteers were mobilized for Days of Caring 2007 and 3,200 engaged in Days of Caring 2008, equivalent to over $200,000 in volunteer hours generated for Greater New Haven.
• 742 residents contributed 8,840 volunteer hours (equivalent to $211,276) toward greening their neighborhoods.
• 20 youth in New Haven have developed 33 new media products raising awareness on community issues affecting their lives and have held educational sessions involving an additional 145 youth.