Posted June 2, 20118:31 am
On June 2, United Way of Greater Cleveland announced funding for the 2011-2012 year. The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland was granted funds from United Way, marking the beginning of Legal Aid's 99th year as a United Way agency.
The red feather, the torch, the helping hand...all symbols of the evolution of today's United Way and of the generosity and dedication of generations of Cleveland-area volunteers.
From its inception, the Cleveland-area volunteers were the first in the country to set up a volunteer-driven system to study human care needs, to allocate funds, and monitor their use. This "citizen review process" became the model for United Way organizations across the country.
For the first fund-raising campaign in 1913, for the Federation for Charity and Philanthropy, there was no dollar goal. The only goal was to involve as many contributors as possible. More than 6,000 individuals and organizations responded. The movement had begun. The benefits of a collective volunteer effort were realized dramatically during World War I as the War Commission and the Cleveland Welfare Federation joined the movement, and in 1917 together raised $4.5 million.
Read more about United Way's history in Cleveland here.