At United Way of Southern Nevada, we’re bringing our community together to invest $8.2 million from cradle to career. By investing in 14 early education centers and 7 funded agencies, we are making a difference together!
Jasmine Taylor with Sunrise Children’s Foundation shares: “Our entire mission is to work with families with children aged 0 to 5, ensuring that they have access to education and nutrition that’s bright from the start. We have parent educators that actually go into the home and prepare parents to be their child’s first teacher.”
An early education center director believes “early childhood is where it begins. It doesn’t begin in kindergarten. Children learn cognitive skills and social-emotional skills. They learn to get along, cooperation…They learn everything at a very young age and this paves the way for what they need to know when they begin the process of elementary school, and the earlier we start with them, the more chance we’re giving them for success.”
Danielle Milam with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Foundation expresses her gratitude for the support of UWSN and its donors: “We are so excited to have eight libraries funded with full-time teachers in the CCSD system that can help our youth get their homework done, learn to be more confident students, and ultimately graduate high school.” One of the students shares: “In school, I get all of my questions right. Thank you tutors for helping me with my math, I really appreciate it!”
Girls on the Run Executive Director Kim Boschee: “We have an intentional life skills curriculum that we creatively integrate with running and physical activity. Our 10-week program starts with girls who may be feeling shy, maybe not sure of themselves, and at the end of those ten weeks they’ve learned so many skills that involve becoming who they are.”
A Girls on the Run participant: “Girls on the Run is fun because you get to meet new people and you get to learn what you need to know to make friends, how to deal with your emotions, and how to be confident in yourself!”
Evelyn Garcia Morales, Program Director: “The Fulfillment Fund Las Vegas focuses on college access, high school graduation, and college persistence. One of the things that we’ve found is that it’s really important to dedicate time and energy to students in high school, and while students are graduating high school, we needed to ensure that they are persisting beyond high school. The funding from United Way is helping us bridge that gap, to help our students persist and stay in college.”
Erica Mosca, Executive Director of Leaders in Training: “We’re really proud of our students and families! Through United Way, we’ve been able to raise more money to help more students go to college.”
LIT participant: “I found out about LIT through my sister who was in Miss Mosca’s teaching program. She told me about this program that helps you have opportunities for colleges, scholarships, everything!”
Erica shares more about her philosophy: “The most important thing for a student like Marcus is that it’s not about going to college. It’s not about saying, ‘I’ve left, I’ve done it, I graduated from Mojave and now I’m out of Vegas!’ That’s not the point. For him and for all of our students, it’s about asking themselves ‘How can I best use my education to be successful and then help our community?'”
Nevada Health Centers: “Welcome to our doctor’s office on wheels! We call this Big Blue, a 38 foot mobile unit. It really is a doctor’s office on wheels, so anything that you can think of that happens in a doctor’s office can happen here. We take care of the most vulnerable kids and teenagers in Las Vegas. If they have a skin infection or they have asthma, they can come in and see us. One of the important things that we would like to do is to be able to take care of those types of problems, but also take care of the problems that may have got them out in the street to begin with. We understand that those kids are worthwhile, those kids are worth saving.”
Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow: “We provide awesome services for our clients to get back into society in the easiest way possible. With this great partnership with United Way, we’re able to develop their whole self, give them confidence, and empower them to get back with that fresh start in life and give them that second chance.”
One of their case managers shares more: “FIT’s mission is really amazing. It really helps people try and build themselves up – sometimes from nothing, or from things that could be better – and it helps people fulfill their potential or figure themselves out. I feel like being able to help people like Ladeira and all of my clients is really rewarding.”
Bill Boyd, a long-time United Way supporter, shares his perspective: “I think the most important thing to me in life has been being able to give back. That makes me personally, and I think a lot of people, feel better than anything else that you do. If you’re able to help others with your success, it all makes a lot of sense and that makes it all worthwhile.”
United Way’s funded partners share their gratitude:
“Without United Way, we would not be able to do half of what we do to get clients back to work as soon as we can.”
“All of this, including making sure we have a staff to run it, is because of the United Way of Southern Nevada.”
“Partnering with the Southern Nevada United Way has made a huge difference in what we’ve been able to do for our community.”
Thank you so much for your support!