Learn more about the award winners, incoming campaign chairs, & more from last week’s event!

On Thursday, March 7, we held our annual event, Game Changers: A Year in Review—a combination of our Annual Meeting and 2018 Campaign Celebration—at the Cedar Rapids Marriott. The event recognized individuals and organizations that are dedicated to making a difference in our community and highlighted last year’s events and campaign.

Guests enjoyed a breakfast buffet—fully-stocked with French toast and four different flavors of syrup!—while UWECI President & CEO Tim Stiles recapped the success of last year and announced our Annual Award winners, who included:

• John B. Northcott Award: Dennis Jordan
• Community Philanthropist Award: Bob & Elizabeth Allsop and The McIntyre Foundation
• Young Leaders Award: Whitney Pino
• Lynn L. Nichols Award: YPN & Brian Stutzman posthumously

Tim also recognized Jack Evans and The Hall-Perrine Foundation for their support over the years to UWECI. For the 2018 Campaign, the Foundation made an even greater commitment with a campaign matching challenge grant of $100,000!

Last year’s campaign co-chairs, Darrel, Paul, and Andrew Morf shared a glimpse at how the 2018 Campaign made an impact on our community:

• Education: 1,162 youth in our community now have a positive attitude toward school and more than 500 improved school attendance
• Financial Stability: 834 people were diverted from shelter or prevented from homelessness
• Health: More than 11,600 un- or under-insured women received healthcare services
• Volunteer: Volunteers put 63,886 hours into our community

All of this success led to more than $8.6 million being directly invested into East Central Iowa in both dollars and volunteer time!

The Morfs then announced this year’s Campaign Award winners—congratulations to the following companies & their campaign coordinators!

• Collins Aerospace Operations Staff
• Farmers State Bank
• Linn Mar Community School District
• MidAmerican Energy
• Raining Rose
• Ryan Company
• Schimberg Co.

To wrap up the event, we introduced our incoming campaign co-chairs—Brad Buck, Noreen Bush, and Rod Dooley from the Cedar Rapids School District! We are excited to have them on board to lead the charge next year for United Way.

Thank you all for your support and joining the fight for our community. Together, we will continue to act as game changers and work to break the cycle of poverty in East Central Iowa.