Paul Szmal: It is 816 on FLX Morning on Finger Lakes News Radio, temperature at 46, little sun outside our studios but there is some light rain moving through parts of the area as well. Our guests this morning include two members of the United Way of Cayuga County and one of them would be Julissa Stone Spacher, good morning Julissa, good morning, how are you Paul? Hello and Lisa Kaminski is here as well, good morning Lisa, good morning Paul, how are you?
And we have a third guest that I want to get to in a minute but first the annual membership meeting and volunteer Cayuga launch is happening today, it is, we're so excited our annual meeting and volunteer Cayuga launch is happening today at 4 o'clock, we're going to be at Owen Orchards, we'd love for everyone to come out and join us, you can meet our board members, meet our staff, hear about what's happening at United Way of Cayuga County, hear about what's happening at some of our member agencies and then we are going to launch our new volunteer website platform, our volunteer hub, Volunteer Cayuga where if you are interested in being a volunteer and in Cayuga County we can match you up with volunteer opportunities so we're super excited about that, please come out and join us, it's $5, walk-ins are welcome. And again that is at Owen Orchards today from 4 until 5.30, definitely worth checking out.
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Julissa, there's an interesting article that highlights the activities of the Booker T. Washington Center that is on the United Way of Cayuga County's website, can you tell us a little bit more about it and welcome in our other guest? Yeah absolutely, so the big things that we're talking about this year is how the United Way dollars that individuals like our listeners may give each year support both food security in Cayuga County as well as child care and when we were putting together our campaign materials for this year and reading over what our new member agencies do, I was reading through Booker T. Washington's applications like part of their program as a child care program is that they provide a hot nutritious dinner each night that the kids are in the program and so this article talks a little bit about how child care centers like BTW are helping bridge that food security gap and so we've invited Denise Farrington who's actually the executive director at BTW and the expert on you know what they do to talk a little bit more about their program and so I just welcome Denise.
Paul Szmal: Thank you Julissa. Yeah Denise, good morning, how are you?
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Good morning Paul, I'm well thank you.
Paul Szmal: Could you tell us a little bit about how this program works?
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Absolutely, so our food program is a program within our after-school program so we take care of two needs right there with daycare and with providing food so we have a grant called Child and Adult Feeding Program and it covers some, not all, some of the food that we serve the children. They get a snack as soon as they get to the program and they also get a full cooked meal before they leave and what I mean by that is it has to have for dinner there's five components. Each child in the program and we serve between 650 to 700 youth, we have to have two ounces of protein, a half a cup of a vegetable, a half a cup of fruit and a grain and it's you know it's quite a interesting and rewarding program for the kids because we know they're going to be fed and during our summer program we also have a brown bag program that we send children home with food for the weekend so it definitely helps eliminate one of the biggest problems that we have with our children and that's hunger and if you can't, if you do not have food in your stomach you can't focus on anything else so we're very passionate about that program.
Paul Szmal: Yeah I was surprised to read the article and find out that the average time for dinner is 6 22 in the evening and sometimes you know kids aren't getting picked up from after school programs or whatever until 5 36 o'clock and that makes it kind of a pinch to try to get dinner on the table so for the kids this is a great thing because they know that they're going to get dinner every day.
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Absolutely and it kind of alleviates you know we have a lot of parents that work two jobs and you know when they do get home it's you know it's later in the day they're exhausted so this way this is also how we can help the parents you know that just takes one more responsibility off of their plate no pun intended and that way they can actually make sure their kids have been fed and it wasn't you know it's nutritional nutritious it's you know it's all the food components and the vitamins that they need and this can help the whole family.
Paul Szmal: And it also solves the the food insecurity problem for parents that worry about making sure that their kids are getting something nutritious.
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Absolutely and you know once again thanks to United Way and helping us you know run these programs and we can make sure that the kids are getting what they need when we have them in our care.
Paul Szmal: So now I take it Lisa this means that the Booker T. Washington Center is now part of the United Way family.
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Yes Booker T. Washington has been a member agency for quite some time with the United Way.
Paul Szmal: All right so they've been a member since their inception in 1927. Oh wow that's a long time. Okay okay so we're talking with Jalissa Stonespager, Lisa Kaminsky, Denise Farrington from the United Way of Keegan County and the Booker T. Washington Center. I know that there is a campaign going on right now how are things going with that?
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Things are going good we're just starting to pick up a lot of the workplaces they're getting started with their drives. Our letters to community members are actually going out this week but I am excited to share that we are at about 20 percent of our goal just under $120,000 is what we've raised so far toward our $600,000 goal. So we've had a couple of campaigns wrap up who went early but we are finding our monetary goal this year is $600,000 and every little bit counts. Even if it's a $10 gift if that's all that your family can do this year is $10 when you pair that with everyone else's $10 that's going to create a lot of impact in our community and feed a lot of our neighbors through BTW and child care facilities. We've got seven that we support including the BTW program and then in addition to that monetary goal the big goal that we're really looking at knowing how hard you know our families are struggling with the economy in the state that it is. We're looking at the number of donors and so our our at the office our primary goal is to collect 1,700 gifts. That's 75 more gifts than we received last year and the gift like I said it can be that $10 you can sign up for a dollar a week through payroll deduction for $52 at the end of the year. It's not so much how much it is when it comes to our goal I mean at the end of the day of course that's what we're giving out to those member agencies but this year we're really trying to get more people involved with the United Way you know making those gifts being a part of the volunteer Cayuga and volunteering with a lot of different non-profits. Many of the agencies you'll see when you log on today are actually member agencies and then of course we've got you know a lot of fun things that we do throughout the year. We've got a lot of events planned coming up.
Paul Szmal: Yeah let's talk about a couple of those events that are on the way.
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Every Sunday in November at Cook's Village Diner and Weed Sport there's a program called Sunday Smiles. Yes so we're this is the second year we're partnering with Cook's Village Diner. They're doing a percentage of sales for the entire day every Sunday in November will be donated back to the United Way of Cayuga County so make sure you go hungry and it's a delicious breakfast.
And then coming up on Tuesday November 11th is the flight night at the Prison City Brew Pub. It is this has become a favorite staple in the community. This is actually the 10th anniversary of flight night so we've got a United Slider flight so it's three burgers or maybe one of them's pulled pork depends on how they're feeling at Prison City. There's flights for wine cocktails and beer and then everyone's favorite dessert flight so that's three little desserts that'll come for flight night. So that's November 11th at the State Street location and it's going to run from 4 to 9 p.m.
And finally the one on Wednesday November the 12th is at the Presbyterian Church in Weed Sport. Yes so we are hosting our second Doug's to Go event this year. We were in Cato earlier this month but we will be at the First Presbyterian Church. We'll also have a bake sale so our County North co-chair Joanna Bielinski she'll be there. We have volunteers who bake things and donate them. It's a donate what you can or pay what you can so there's no set prices. And then of course who doesn't like a delicious fish fry from Doug's and a portion of sales does get donated back through the Doug's when we do these different events. So it's a great way to support the United Way, support the community and have a great meal.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely these are three great events that you can take advantage of where you get something and the United Way gets something too. Yeah.
It is 8 26 on FLX morning on Finger Lakes News Radio. Ladies thank you for joining us this morning we appreciate it.
Jelissa Stone, Lisa Kaminski, Denise Farrington: Thank you.
