Members of United Way of the River Cities will begin their campaign kickoff Oct. 17 at Cabell Huntington Hospital, where students in Marshall University’s School of Medicine and School of Pharmacy will run an awareness table and have cookie sales from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

UWRC is just one branch of United Way, a national organization dedicated to assisting people with education, income, safety-net services and health, and focuses on serving those in Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln and Mason counties in West Virginia and those in Lawrence County, Ohio.

UWRC operates through donations. Contributions are then given to specific organizations that have already completed a grant application through United Way.

“All of the money that is raised here stays here,” said Megan Archer, university relations specialist and co-chair of the UWRC committee. “We have something called a ‘community impact motto.’ Organizations that need funding for their projects or initiatives request money for what they need to do that fiscal year, and United Way, through their fundraising efforts, are able to fund that organization in order to help them solve some of our community’s most pressing issues.”

Because UWRC members cannot determine in advance how much money will be donated, contributors are unable to designate their money to a certain cause. A United Way committee determines what programs money will fund based off of whether or not the organization’s cause addresses an area the committee has identified as an issue, what they plan to use the money for and how members of the organization want the money to change lives.

“They (contributors) can be assured the agency has been vetted, that they are a registered nonprofit (organization) and we’ve done due diligence to ensure they are financially stable,” said Laura Gilliam, executive director of United Way.

As of July 1, 25 organizations were awarded either two-year impact grants or one-year safety-net grants, some of which include the Huntington City Mission, Branches Domestic Violence Shelter, American Red Cross of West Virginia, Prestera-Renaissance Place and Huntington YMCA-Kids in Motion.

“At a university, we should want to improve the community that the university lives in,” Archer said. “We should want to better that so that families feel safe about sending their students here, so the students themselves feel proud of the community. These are big issues that, without someone like United Way helping, aren’t going to get any better.”

Olivia Zarilla can be contacted at [email protected].