United Way Donation Boxes
What is a community support box?
Over the past several months the United Way of Greater Nashua has been working with local merchants to place donation collection boxes on the counters of many of the stores you visit every day. In the next several weeks we are expanding this effort and you will begin to see donation boxes for the United Way in a growing number of stores and businesses throughout our community.
While many may have seen these boxes over the past months, many don’t know what they are for. The United Way leverages the small donations left in these boxes at participating locations to address serious concerns facing our community.
Previously our program focused on our COVID Rapid Response Fund and the Learning United Program. Your contributions helped as these efforts provided over 700 laptops and 475 Wi-Fi hotspots to students who need access to remote learning.
Our COVID Rapid Response Fund has given over 10,000 non-perishable food items to local food pantries, and over 8,400 community residents have received free produce from local pop-up pantries. While our donation boxes did not fully fund these activities; the funds raised were used to support these efforts.
How are your donations helping the community?
Donations to these boxes fund our Community Safety Net Grants which are three-year commitments with local partners who serve low-income, disadvantaged residents of Greater Nashua. It is a wise investment because donations are dispersed among organizations that support the health, education, and economic mobility of community members from pregnancy/infancy to seniors. The efforts of one organization, like a youth-after-school program, will not succeed if that youth has poor health or unstable housing and cannot attend school, for example. While not mathematically accurate, in this case, we believe that the benefit of a well-supported community is a case where the total is greater than the sum of its parts and that Great Things Happen when we LIVE UNITED.
Think your pocket change doesn’t make a difference? If we collect 50 cents from four people that will provide meals to one homeless teen; if we can collect that from 100 people we can provide access to clean clothes, housing, or shelter. This can be the start of a new life for community members who have been lost to homelessness, poverty, and despair.
Where are the community support boxes located?
Support for this project in the community has been overwhelming. To date we are nearly one-third of the way to our annual goal, but we have a long way to go. This project is being supported not only by those providing donations, but by the locations are currently hosting our donation boxes — and the number of locations supporting these efforts is growing.
- Follow this link for a LIST OF AREA BUSINESSES where the United Way donation boxes are located.
- Follow this link to FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HOST A DONATION BOX at your business.
