Event Update: United Way Night at the Drive
UPDATED Aug. 18, 2021
As you know, this year’s United Way Night at the Drive, scheduled for next Wednesday at Fluor Field, was set to serve as a celebration of our community and the impact we make together. Although the Drive game on the 25th will continue as planned, after much consideration, we’ve decided to shift to a virtual format.
Even though we won’t be gathering in person, we don’t want to miss the opportunity to celebrate the individuals and companies that make our work possible. We invite you to join us Wednesday, September 15, at noon for a virtual event to kick off our giving season. Please RSVP here via Zoom.
We thank our friends at the Greenville Drive and our sponsors, Southern First Bank, ITW Hartness and Forge Search. We can’t wait to start planning our United Way Night celebration back at Fluor Field during the Drive’s 2022 season.
Thank you again for your ongoing support of United Way of Greenville County. I can’t tell you enough how much we appreciate you and your commitment to our organization and this community.
In partnership,
Meghan Barp
President & CEO
United Way of Greenville County
One of the most important parts of our work at United Way is bringing people together for a common cause. After 18 months of virtual events and Zoom meetings, we can’t wait to finally put the united back in United Way by bringing the community back together for United Way Night at the Drive.
Not only will this be a fun night of baseball at Fluor Field, the evening will also serve as a celebration of you—our generous supporters—and the impact we made together through one of the most trying years in our history.
Thanks to the amazing generosity and resolve of this community, we were able to be there when we were needed most. To give you an idea of scope of need we saw, last year we answered more than 45,000 calls for help on our Greenville County Resource Line from individuals and families in very tough situations—some for the very first time in their lives.
Because your support, we were able to connect them with the help they needed, including emergency food and housing for more than 10,000 people and utility assistance for 3,600 households in Greenville County.
As we continue to the respond and recover the effects of the pandemic, we are looking to the future and how we can lay the foundation for an inclusive recovery that leaves no member of our community behind. At United Way Night, we will showcase how we plan to do this through our new Economic Mobility Model.
Informed by expert national and local research, extensive community conversations and 100 years of on-the-ground experience, we’ve identified Education, Financial Stability, and Vibrant and Equitable Communities as the three essential impact areas for increasing economic mobility. Drive fans and United Way supporters will have the opportunity to tour the concourse and learn more about each of these critical impact areas, and how United Way initiatives like OnTrack Greenville, VITA, the Opportunity Center and AmeriCorps are helping people live better lives every day.
None of this work is possible without our generous community and United Way Night will also serve as the official kickoff to our annual community campaign. We’re inviting more than 300 companies and organizations to join us to learn more about the continued need in our community and how each individual person’s support makes a real impact.
I think 2021 Campaign Chair Cal Hurst put it best recently when he was asked about the continued need for support:
The last 18 months have highlighted disparities, challenged our typical ways of thinking and created true need across our community. Maybe more people than ever in Greenville County need a helping hand, and United Way of Greenville County is better positioned to make the most impact on the most people than any other organization in Greenville County, but we need your caring heart, we need your hands and feet, and we need your support.
I couldn’t agree more.