The Community, Connections & Commerce Podcast, presented by OUE & St. Clairsville Chamber - Community and Connections Season 2 Episode 7 with the United Way

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Hi everyone. It's Wendy and welcome back to Community Connections. I'm Wendy Anderson and along with Jason Garthick. Good to see you again, Wendy. Good to see you again. And with us today on Community Connections is Stacey Stevens from United Way. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I am so glad you're here. You have so much stuff to go over. And I think it's so important to let the community know. And you're not just Belmont County. We are not. So we serve seven counties, six counties throughout West Virginia, Tyler Wetzel, Marshall, Ohio, Brooke and Hancock County, and then Belmont County in Ohio. So we serve seven counties overall. Almost 30 programs of other nonprofit agencies throughout those seven counties. You know, every year we do an annual campaign. Last year was raised here, stays here. This one, we're going to announce our new one in September, September 6 at the West Liberty Home Game. We're having our campaign kickoff there this year. Mike Rohn, if I have a choice, I like to do business. Oh, fun companies that actually stand for something. That's why I switch from Verizon to pure time. No offense to Verizon.

I'm sure they stand for something. I just don't know what it is. That ought to be a fun. Your talk on the other hand is a veteran-owned company that supports our military in a big way. And I appreciate that. We raise funds throughout the year to fund different programs for nonprofit agencies throughout those seven counties. So we just went through our allocations process in April. And we were, what I really appreciate,

allocated over $650,000 to local non-profit agencies. The pure talks commitment to handle all their customer service in this country. I saw it from myself. And the way we do that is through fundraising throughout the year, employee campaigns, individual donations, corporate donations, and sponsorships. When you dial pound 250 and say keyword might work. So we were able to allocate that money.

Some of those programs that we, you know, allocate out to our like, you don't quite through, might grow. Pure Talk, a wireless company that actually stands for something. Women in New Directions is one of those. Then Girl Scouts scholarships for Girl Scouts that may not be able to afford to join otherwise. So we do scholarships for the Girl Scouts. We fund the summer program, Y for Life for the YMCA.

So we have a lot of great causes, the Red Cross, the Salvation armies. You know, a lot of it has to do with food insecurity, utility assistance, rental assistance, the Gabriel Project, with babies so we have lots of you know worthy programs that we help fund throughout the year and that's kind of what we do but we also have a lot of direct services that we provide as well so coming up in august we have a lace-up for kids which is a huge undertaking for the united way we provide shoes we work with uh shoe sensations throughout all seven counties and operation warm and we purchase shoes and we do all of this through sponsorships so really yes different businesses will come in and sponsor and that allows us to go out and buy these tennis shoes.

Anybody that qualifies can go to our website, United Way, uOV.org, and sign up for that. And those are usually distributed sometime in August before the kids go back to school. And we'll do that throughout all seven counties as well. Last year, I think we gave out over 1,500 pairs of shoes to kids. So it's a huge undertaking. you know, Maddie CB, our associate director. Maddie does a good job with that.

Yeah, she takes this all on herself and was working on that. She's actually on vacation this week, but was working on all that before she took off. So she does a great job with that. And she, you know, Jessica Ryan, Jessica Moore's kids, always come and help. And they're the best volunteers. And they just go county to county and distribute shoes. And a lot of times if people can't get to the distribution point, we'll try to make arrangements to get the shoes as best we can. Now, with that program, do you take donations, like shoe donations?

Well, we haven't in the past. Like, if you have brand new shoes that you want to donate, that's great. What we do is shoe sensations gives us a discount on all of the shoes. We'll go buy them. They have them already boxed up for us. And then we print a receipt that the families can have, that they could go. If the shoes don't fit, they can exchange them for another size. You can't return them for a refund, but you can exchange them for a different size.

and then also we go through Operation Worm most of those are for the little the littower kids and we'll get some shoes through there so that we can also provide them with brand new shoes, yeah. Wow. I just, I always think about those kids

who, you know, may not have shoes, their toes are stuck in there. They have holes in their shoes going back to school and you know how mean kids can be sometimes and this gives them the opportunity to have brand new shoes to go to school and they don't have to worry about that. And that's another,

thing the family has to worry about as well. And that's, you know, right now with the economy the way it is, people are struggling. Absolutely. Like, seriously struggling. And I know just the idea of being able to send your kid to school when they, with a backpack filled with. There's a bunch of new AI software and devices. And, you know, your shoes and, you know, and that has a outfit or something.

It is so important. You can't do it on your own sometimes. Right, absolutely, especially if you have multiple kids, and they're all going back to school and they're all going back to school supplies. So we try to take as much of that burden away from them as we can. These new AI devices and software are what else? So then in December, we partner with the Belmont County Sheriff's Office and the Wheeling Police Department. And that's usually the first Saturday or second Saturday of December to do Operation Toilip. So this was, this came about from Chief Shortfiger at Wheeling Police Department,

where he had been located before they did this. and it was a huge success. So we spend all day Saturday out to the Haya Valley Mall, work with candy out there. It's a great time. We have a hot chocolate truck where people come and get hot chocolate. We have music, Christmas music playing throughout the day. Usually they'll bring the therapy dog out.

So if the kids come through, they can see the therapy dog. But people can just come out and drive through and we pick up the toys. And FedEx comes out and helps us deliver those. location where we'll be sorting them. And then that following Monday, we have all kinds of volunteers, including Wendy Anderson, usually come out and help us get all those toys sorted. And we were very fortunate last year to receive a grant from the Sonnenborn Family Foundation that allowed us to not only purchase shoes for Lisa, but also we get a lot of toys for the younger

kids. So, you know, it's hard for the older kids because you don't know what they want. And a lot of times it's a PlayStation or, you know, something big. So what we do is we take that money and take requests from local nonprofit organizations. And we go out and try to buy that. Now, this year, it got a little crazy. I was pretty much on first name basis with everyone at Walmart. And going back and forth to the point they're like, you need another bike.

And I was like, yep. And to the point we're getting them from boxes from back. And then Jane, my development coordinator and I would be out there learning bikes. and murder one of one of the toys and something that's a first of its kind live interactive true crime radio show. It's so much fun and, you know, the problem is we don't get to see those kids open the toys, but just knowing and then the stories will come out afterwards. We had a grandmother who said the dolls that my two grandkids got from you last year. Hazie Sunshine today with highs in the low 70s tonight. Yeah, and then, you know, just stories like that and we had a grandmother come through this year and she donated toys.

I'm secure weather team nine meter, I'll just chef X along. Stay connected. Stay productive with Rapid Radio's. Business owners trust Rapid Radio's for instant reliable team communication with nationwide LTE coverage. She took them back to the store where they bought stuff with their own money and then they came back and gave us their employees.

Order now at rapid radios.com. There's stories like that, you know, we may not get to see them all the time and we've had other people reach out to us. So once the store is set up, any nonprofit agency can come shop for their clients. And, you know, we try to have it like you've been there. So we try to keep it categorize. your news feed at the top and bottom of the hour and posting opinions the rest of the time.

And then we've also had an email 1170, WWVA. We have a co-worker who's really struggling this year. Or, you know, we have somebody in our family who's really struggling. Is there any way you can help? So, you know, in the past years, we've gone and bought Kroger cards. So not only did they have the toys, but they have some meal for their holiday. Yeah. And, you know, stockings and stocking stuffers.

And just try to give them a decent Christmas. two years ago we had a gentleman who had been laid off and was a single dad and we went and just we went overboard for these kids but you know we are so happy to do it and drop it off and we did and he was in tears you know just so grateful for everything but it's one of my favorite events of the year and you know Christmas is my favorite time anyway so just making sure that all the kids in the valley are taken care of and nobody goes without something you know the sheriff's office I think it was Christmas Eve he was still out there delivering the toys we had to the families because some of them couldn't get out to the location so he said I'll go and deliver these so it's just a great event and everyone works together and we talk about bringing both sides of the river together so you know wheeling is working with Belmont County and it's just a great event it's one of my favorites all together so it's one of my favorites I've been what volunteering to for a couple years now and just to see all the toys it's got i will say it has gotten bigger

since i started but i think you're you're getting out there and more and talking about it more so i also know you have a drop off at the at the west bank arena correct for symphony on ice yes this year they had a drop off for symphony on ice um you know belmont savings bank also does a luncheon for us with the chamber um where they would instead of people paying for the luncheon they would bring toys. Chaps has always been great about donating the lunch and it's just a great way for the community to come together and support those who are, you know, struggling. Not everyone, even the people that aren't under the federal poverty line, you know, with the rise in cost and inflation, things are getting really hard for these families that are in this category above the

federal poverty line, which we call Alice. And that is asset limited income constrained but employed. so these are the asset limited income constrained but employed so we call it alice that's a program through the united way and these are the families that are working uh you know maybe both parents are working but they're just living paycheck to paycheck and it takes one car you know issue or one medical bill to kind of put them into a downward spiral where they just can't rebound so um through the united way we have a program called 211. So anyone throughout in the six counties of West Virginia can call 211, text 211, and they will get an operator in our office.

She is in our office local. So she has all local resources and she can kind of try to help them find those resources they may need, whether it be transportation or mental health services, utility, rental assistance, any kind of medical help they may need. And she can help them. Now in Belmont County, it's a little different. they just called the United Way office.

Right. And that number is 304-232-4-4-625. Same thing. They just choose the 21-1 option once they call the office. But we do that. She helps people tremendously. You know, we just went through the whole thing with East Ohio Regional Hospital

where they were not getting paid. So we had reached out to our community partners like the Salvation Armies and Catholic Charities is a huge one to kind of help some of those employees. and they were all on board saying 100% we're going to help them. I called Susie Nelson at the Community Foundation and said, is there anything we can do to help financially? It's great that we can give them food and things,

but they're going to need to help with bills. She called me back within a couple of days and said, I have the money for you. River Valley Health Foundation came on board and gave us a very generous grant to be able to help these employees. Throughout that 211 program, Melinda started setting up appointments. They could come in, bring their,

utility information, their bills, anything they needed some assistance with, and their East Ohio Regional badge. And we were able to help them with some utilities and car payments. Some of them just needed help changing their license from Ohio to West Virginia or for daycare, you know, background checks, things like that. So we tried to help them the best we could. We did have a waiting list in River Valley Health Foundation just reached out again and said, we want to get all those people off the waiting list and just gave us another $25,000 that we'll be distributing this week to those East Ohio. Yeah.

So they've been great. But that is the program we're starting through the 211 is the Alice Fund. So, you know, if you call 211 and you're in that Alice category, we're going to help you fill out an application. Say something happens with your car. You'll fill out the application. And then hopefully we'll be able to help you take care of some of those, you know, things that happen that are unexpected and it's about 50% of the population in West Virginia are either under the federal poverty line or in the Alice category which is

crazy it's the people in your family it's people you work with it's people you pass every day on the street and you just don't even think about it I say this all the time I think a lot of people probably that work in the nonprofit world would fall into the Alice category so you know it's just a it's something we felt really strongly about that we wanted to help a lot of times when people would call 211 if they weren't under the federal poverty line sometimes we couldn't find them the assistance that we needed to find them so we felt strongly when we wanted to start this program to kind of help those people that couldn't get it otherwise and they're trying you know even the people that would come in from east of Ohio they didn't

want to be there they didn't want to have to ask for help yeah they were embarrassed and you know we explained to them don't be embarrassed this is just not your fault at all you're working you know they were unforeseen right so um it's those type of people that we really want to help that are trying to do the best they can and you know just may come across something unexpected uh throughout life so wow it's wonderful it's wonderful all the work that you're able to to give back to the community and and make these things happen can you give us a little insight on the history of the united way and how it got started yeah so the united way was founded i believe in 1964 um and you know we are under the umbrella of United Way worldwide. However, all of the money that we raise here

stays here locally. So that was our campaign last year, raised here, stays here. And that all goes to the seven counties that we currently serve. About two years ago, we took over Hancock County. They're the Weirton United Way kind of dissolved and we took over that area as well. So we also have a satellite office in Weirton and we do some work up there. We're going to have three new fundraisers coming to the Weirton area. But throughout this, it's just been, a partnership between the United Way and these other nonprofit human service agencies that are doing great work. And that's what we did was raise money, you know, allocated this money out. We just wanted to do something a little extra that hits the population that maybe wasn't

getting served all the time. So we're allocating that money. And this fund is completely separate from our campaign funds. So, you know, we're trying to raise some of that through grants and other opportunities. Hi Mark was a big one that came in and decided to fund this program for all the United Way in West Virginia that wanted to provide this help to the Alice population. So that's kind of what got our fund started. And then with East Ohio River Valley came in and kind of helped us with that one. So I know you just were not, I don't know who just launched the crisis daycare. Oh, that is Tara Cruz. Yep. And she at Holy Family. Yep, at Holy Family. and she is getting ready to launch the crisis nursery,

which is a great, I think, asset to our community. And I've talked to her a lot about United Way working with them and being part of that as well. So she and I are kind of working on a couple of things. We're doing a little bit more research throughout the crisis nurseries that are already been established in other places to kind of see how we can make that work between the United Way and the Crisis Nursery for Holy Family.

okay so when will that start I'm not sure when she's getting that started but you know she has done a great job out at Holy Family getting not only the crisis nursery but help for kids that have different abilities the you know educational criteria out there she's done a great job getting that all up you know to speed and gone above and beyond I know she's brought kind of behavioral services and to kind of work with some of the kids that, you know, need a little additional help. So she's done a great job out there and we're excited to be a community partner with her as well. So I know a lot of the things that you do, you do in a lot of events. We do a lot of events.

A lot of events. And I, but you need volunteers for those. So how would someone go about becoming a volunteer for United Way? So you can go to our website, United Way, UOV for Upper High Valley.org. And we will have a sign up for volunteers in the very near future. You know, in September, I believe September 20th, we are planning a possible Dancing with the Stars. That's not really called Dancing with the Stars.

But it's going to be a similar event up in Wintersville at St. Florian Hall. So we're partnering with the Jefferson County United Way to put on an event up there. and Eric Fithian from the Brook County Chamber of Commerce is also helping us. So we'll be working on that. We're working with another agency that is going to sponsor a clay shoot for us, October 31st up in Hancock County, another event. And then in January, the end of January, January, we're going to have a Super Bowl party up at the Pepsi Cola Roadhouse.

Hopefully, that'll be another fundraiser for Hancock County as well. So lots of events towards the end of the year. And then we also have the building a better community breakfast here in Wheeling at the casino. That usually takes place in November where we honor someone in the community that's kind of gone above and beyond over the past year. And not just helping the United Way, but helping the community in general. Last year, that was Todd Kover from Belmont Savings Bank. You know, Wendy, you got one of the volunteers of the year. Yes, I did.

But we just want to say thank you to, you know, all those people who helped us throughout the year. So it's a free event that we invite people to come to those people that have been there for the United Way throughout the year. And we treat them to breakfast and do a little program and we honor those people that have been a huge help to us and the community in general. I think that's great because volunteerism has really diminished what I have noticed in some of our things that we do in the community. and I think when you volunteer, it makes you feel good about yourself and you give back to the community because sometimes you can't give financial help. Sometimes, you know, you just don't have the ability to do that.

So what you do is in that way, you give to of yourself. Absolutely. You know, that's serving the community. And I think that is something that we're lacking in the Ohio Valley. And I hate to say that, but I see it firsthand. So the more that we can help and reach out. And you guys, the United Way, does so much. And there are so many different events that if you're not interested in the chili cookoff or ice cream, then you could do, you know, you could do something else that you have.

Yeah. And we have a lot of people that volunteer for LESA for Kids or volunteer for Operation Toy Lift, you know. we have a lot of different different kind of events I think that people can help with but I think fundraising's been different in general since COVID. It has. Yeah. You know we have a lot of nonprofit partners

and we have a monthly meeting that we all kind of, we usually have a presenter come and we all sit around and talk you know about what's going on and it's been really hard especially lately with just not knowing. Like the unknown is really hard not knowing if your funding is going to be cut

you know, for example, we are getting ready to possibly look into having an AmeriCorps, a unionized away, and then that funding was kind of taken away. So it's, you know, transitional pivoting and just trying to figure out. But working together is the only thing, because through that conversation, I had a conversation on Lori Jones right after that, you know, and she's like, why don't you call the National Council on Aging? And I was like, that's a great idea. So we all work. together to kind of like pick each other's brains and see where we can go. I had a friend reach out a couple weekends ago. She had a friend who was struggling. We were able to get them some help. But it's all through our community partners. And the thing I always go back to was in

2017 when I was working in a Gassili Learning Center and our center burnt down. The outpouring from the community was so amazing. And I had two people reach out to me. One was from, I believe, New York City one was from Hawaii and they said I've never seen anything like this if that would have happened to us where we live we would have been done we would have not been able to start up again because you have such a great community there that is willing to wrap their arms around you and help you rebuild yeah I mean and that's what we did we literally rebuilt and I and I just keep thinking about that like if we lived anywhere else would we be able to do everything we do now when the flood happened

I reached out to Karen Hott at Seeing Hand Association they make mops so we were able to take a load of mops and go to the people that were flooding you know just EQT had donated to some clothes to us so YSS called

and they said hey we'll take those clothes we'll go down the island and we'll hand them out we'll do a clothing distribution you know the food pantries I worked with the St. Clair'sville Food Pantry and the Salvation Armies and we got some food gathered up and we're able to go deliver that

So that's what it is. But it's because of our community and the giving and the outpouring of love that we see from all of them is why we can do what we do. Well, you do what you do very well. And let's face it, they need a leader. And you are that leader. Thank you. I appreciate that. And, you know, I'm blessed to know you.

Well, we couldn't do it without people like you who volunteer at all of our events. All of our events. I will continue to do so. And so Jackpot Jubilee is coming up. up at the casino that you can also volunteer for as your as your celebrity dealer okay oh i thought that yeah that was funny yeah that that was fun yeah okay um so anyway so stacey thank you so much for coming so you want to tell the the listeners what your um website is again yeah it's united way u ov.org and uv is for upper Ohio valley okay and what's the number in belmont county or

that Belmont County residents. 304-232-4-625. Okay. So that's for the people in Belmont County that need to reach 21-1, and then they can just select 21-1 as the option once they call. Anyone in the other six counties in West Virginia can just call 21-1. Okay. All right.

Well, Stacey, thank you so much. Thank you. Jason? Good to see you, Wendy. Good to see you. This is great. Yeah, I know. I learned a lot here.

All right. For those out there who's listening, if you have any suggestions, or comments make sure that you send us an email at OUE podcast at Ohio. Edo yes say that again OUEE podcast at Ohio.edu there you go all right for Wendy Jason and Stacy we'll see you later