Community Spotlight: United Way of Wyoming Valley

If there were ever an ideal organization to feature in Wilkes-Barre POWER! content, it would be the United Way of Wyoming Valley .

This branch of the global United Way is “proud to partner with businesses, employees, individuals, foundations, agencies, schools, civic organizations, government and others to improve and strengthen our community,” according to its website .

Through 27 programs within 18 agencies, the United Way of Wyoming Valley seeks to improve the quality of life for the underserved in our region by honing in on childhood poverty.

Why that issue specifically?

It’s because “nothing will change if we can’t address the root causes [of social problems in our area],” said Bill Jones , president and chief executive officer of the United Way of Wyoming Valley. Problems involving mental health, reading proficiency, graduation rates - Bill sees it all stemming from childhood poverty here in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“The childhood poverty rate [here] was 14.7% in 2000,” he said. “It was 29.6% in 2012…Where does the United Way fit [in this]?”

2012 was also the year Bill came aboard as president and CEO of United Way of Wyoming Valley. The organization was involved in numerous social initiatives at that time, but Bill ultimately brought it into line with his view that addressing childhood poverty was the most effective way to enact real social change in the Wyoming Valley. “We narrowed our focus to increase our impact. It really was transformational.”

But what does challenging childhood poverty involve from a practical perspective?

The United Way of Wyoming Valley started building toward its goal in what Bill saw as the most logical place: education.

“Education is the best pathway out of poverty,” he said. “While the education system exists, families have more and more barriers to receiving that education and being able to capitalize on it. We want to remove barriers and help kids graduate on time. That’s a key indicator of wellness in the community.”

So, the United Way of Wyoming Valley got to work. The organization started reading programs, partnered with schools to organize book drives and summer reading programs, and even collaborated with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to send monthly books to children from birth to five years old.

Then there’s the Nurse’s Pantry program, through which the United Way of Wyoming Valley supplies school nurses with basic hygiene items such as soap and shampoo for children who don’t have access to these basic necessities.

Through a partnership with a local optometrist, the organization has also supplied much-needed glasses to 946 children over the last three school years.

And how is all this going, you ask?

“We are in every elementary school in the Wyoming Valley,” Bill said.

The work of the United Way of Wyoming Valley is ongoing, Bill told us, since setbacks can always arise. He noted how reading proficiency in the Wyoming Valley decreased from 58% in 2018 to 45% in 2021 due to children not having direct access to school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The organization’s goals, Bll said, are “very, very long-term. We need to improve the odds of success for at-risk children and families.”

The United Way of Wyoming Valley welcomes volunteers from our area holding drives for books and hygiene items that the organization can get into the hands of the children who need them most.

Volunteers can also register for the Reading Buddies program , which pairs school children with adults who help them read a book and understand sight words.

You can contact the United Way of Wyoming Valley at:

Website: unitedwaywb.org

Address: 100 N. Pennsylvania Ave., 2nd Floor, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701

Phone: (570) 829-6711

Fax: (570) 822-0522

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Written by Michael Ruth

Michael is a professional writer and digital marketer whose areas of expertise include SEO writing, ghostwriting, and brand storytelling. He is the founder and CEO of 1900 Digital Marketing LLC and the director of content marketing at Wilkes-Barre POWER!