Community Investments
Strengthening Eastern LaSalle County Through Agency Partnerships
Transforming LIves. Together.
United Way of Eastern LaSalle County is at the forefront of transforming lives by strategically funding programs crucial to supporting those in need. Your generous contributions enable us to magnify the impact of these programs, reaching individuals and families across our community. By fostering a network of unwavering community support, we collectively create a ripple effect of positive change.
Together, we tackle the root causes of challenges, uplift those facing adversity, and build a resilient, thriving community where every person has the opportunity to flourish. Your support isn’t just a donation; it’s an investment in the well-being and future success of Eastern LaSalle County.
Community Investments — FY 2023
In Fiscal Year 2023, United Way of Eastern LaSalle County proudly funded a diverse range of impactful programs aimed at addressing critical community needs. These initiatives, made possible by your generous contributions, spanned across education, financial stability, health, and emergency response.
Together, we navigated challenges, amplified the reach of vital services, and forged a stronger, more resilient community for the benefit of all. Your support ensures that the programs we fund continue to make a tangible and lasting difference in Eastern LaSalle County.
Educate 35
Educate 35 and the Regional Office of Education #35 have formed a partnership aimed at supporting students in need. As part of this collaboration, Educate 35 proposes the creation of a Care Closet, which will offer essential items to students facing challenges such as homelessness, low-income situations, English-language barriers, or those from single-parent homes. By providing basic necessities like hygiene products, school supplies, food, and transportation, the Care Closet aims to minimize disruptions to students’ education.
There are many students experiencing housing insecurity in Eastern La Salle County. The lack of basic necessities poses a significant threat to these students’ education. With funding from the United Way of Eastern La Salle County, more housing-insecure and low-income students will be able to benefit from the services offered, ensuring their educational stability and success.
Success Story
Educate 35 and the Regional Office of Education #35 have formed a partnership aimed at supporting students in need. As part of this collaboration, Educate 35 proposes the creation of a Care Closet, which will offer essential items to students facing challenges such as homelessness, low-income situations, English-language barriers, or those from single-parent homes. By providing basic necessities like hygiene products, school supplies, food, and transportation, the Care Closet aims to minimize disruptions to students’ education.
There are many students experiencing housing insecurity in Eastern La Salle County. The lack of basic necessities poses a significant threat to these students’ education. With funding from the United Way of Eastern La Salle County, more housing-insecure and low-income students will be able to benefit from the services offered, ensuring their educational stability and success.
Success Story
Tommy is a 41-year-old Ottawa local. Like many experiencing from housing insecurity, Tommy found himself sleeping in the park, suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. Ready to improve his life, Tommy made the decision to attend an in-patient treatment program with assistance from another local agency.
Tommy successfully completed the inpatient portion and continues a rigorous outpatient program. He regularly participates in the kitchen, receiving both lunch and a meal to eat during his break at his job. He is working with our local agency client coordinator to develop an more permanent housing plan.
A Servant’s Heart
A Servant’s Heart ministry was formed to provide crisis intervention to the homeless and needy of LaSalle County, with the guidance of our Lord Jesus Christ, to merge appropriate individuals and organizations to fill resource needs.
The Community Kitchen continues to experience challenges staffing the kitchen. By partnering with United Way of LaSalle County, the Community Kitchen can continue to provide free meals for anyone in the community 5 days a week. Funding from United Way helps to subsidize wages for a certified Kitchen Manager, as well as rental truck expenses incurred in the collection of food.
Ottawa Community Food Basket
The Ottawa Community Food Basket’s Milk Fund program has allowed them to provide fresh dairy products to their clients for many years. Dairy is one of the most requested types of food at food pantries and is especially important for our youngest clients.
Overall, rising food prices have caused Ottawa Community Food Basket to seek more funding for their programs. This is especially true when it comes to milk and dairy products. Even though the 2023 campaign raised more money than ever, their bills have risen due to higher prices and more clients seeking aid.
Success Story
In the summer of 2023, Ottawa Community Food Basket was approached by a client who is a single mother providing for 3 children under the age of 10. She wanted to thank them for being there for her family, especially with CFB’s milk voucher program. With the kids out of school, her house has been going through at least 2 gallons of milk per week, which has been a significant strain on her already small budget. CFB’s milk vouchers, good to be used for one gallon of any variety of white milk at Handy Foods, is one of the main reasons she makes sure to never miss a visit to the Community Food Basket.
Success Story
Leigh is a 19-year-old who contacted Safe Journey’s support line. She was dating a 23-year-old, Alex. She spoke with our advocate and said that the first few months had been perfect. Alex had been very supportive and they hung out with friends almost every weekend.
However, over the past couple of months, things have changed. She said she was always doing things that disappointed Alex and she didn’t now how to stop this. Leigh said that there has been no physical abuse. However, a couple of friends had suggested that she reach out to the support line to discuss what was happening.
The support line advocate discussed how domestic violence is more than physical abuse. It includes emotional abuse, which Leigh was experiencing along with other types of power and control. The advocate kept reiterating that none of the abuse was Leigh’s fault.
Leigh continued to call our support line regularly over the next month. She then felt that she wished to end her relationship with Alex. The support line advocate assisted Leigh with developing a safety plan. Leigh wished to obtain supportive counseling to further process the impact of her relationship with John. As she would be going to college out of town soon, Safe Journeys connected her with a domestic violence agency in her college town.
Safe Journeys
Safe Journeys provides 24-hour support line, short-term shelter, legal and medical advocacy, case management, and supportive counseling services to survivors of domestic and sexual assault. These services are partially funded by UW-ELC. Our goal is for survivors to regain their voice, their power, and their sense of safety.
In FY24, Safe Journeys is continuing to work with the OSF Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program to start a Sexual Assault Response Team in this area. they are also seeking to start a similar coordinated community response for domestic violence cases. Additionally, they are developing a plan to start longer-term housing for survivors of domestic assault and to provide pet-friendly shelter services.
Youth Service Bureau (YSB)
Youth Service Bureau is improving individual challenges and family situations by offering individual and family counseling. The outreach program has been in place for over 35 years, and it continues to be a beneficial program within the community. Out of the four caseworkers that the outreach program has, three are veteran workers that have been with the agency for many years.
The greatest challenge is the lack of crisis foster homes. The RHY program is down to 3 host homes to utilize for youth In crisis. Staff have been getting out in the community to try and recruit more homes. Due to the lack of homes, staff have been doing a 24 hour rotation in office to supervise clients who are in need of shelter after a crisis if no home is available or if the client is too high risk to place.
Success Story
TJ is a young man who was referred to the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program due to legal, mental health, and family issues. TJ was placed on probation and received court supervision. Part of his probation was that he needed to follow through on mental health services and attend school on a regular basis. TJ was having truancy problems-and since that was against his probation he was put into the detention home for a few weeks. Shortly after, TJ began struggling with depression, eventually being hospitalized. TJ was unable to utilize healthier coping skills, and seemed like things continued to go downhill.
T J was referred to the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program by his probation officer and mother. He was linked up with a caseworker in the program to help him come up with goals on his service plan to have better coping skills and attend school on a regular basis again. His caseworker met with him on a weekly basis and as time went on TJ was showing significant improvements. He was attending school more consistently, was communicating better with his mother, and he was able to come up with better ways of handling his depression better. TJ credits the birth of his nephew and his Runaway and Homeless Youth Caseworker for him making a complete turn around in his life.
Success Story
Jennifer has been engaged in individual counseling for the past few years. She is currently utilizing the sliding fee option due to limited access to counseling services. Jennifer presented to counseling on her own accord to address concerns related to her experience with chronic illness and severe social anxiety. She has learned coping skills to manage her anxiety related to her illness and healthy boundaries to decrease stress in her life. Jennifer has shown progress in her ability to identify triggers and challenge her anxiety by accomplishing small personal goals. Jennifer has made comments related to her appreciation for affordable counseling services. Overall, she seems to have benefitted from counseling services.
Center for Youth and Family Services
At CYFS, we are guided by our mission to partner with clients and achieve solutions together. We utilize a family-systems, inclusive, trauma-responsive, and strengths- based approach when working with families. Our master’s level clinicians are dedicated to providing quality mental health services to clients. With the decline of COVID, we have returned to offering in-person therapy services; however, we continue to offer telehealth services for the convenience of those in our community who do not have the ability to come to our office due to health, lack of childcare, or transportation barriers. We strive to meet clients where they are, and we are proud of our adaptability in shifting our approach based on situations that arise.
CYFS recognizes the need for access to quality mental health services within the community. In an attempt to meet this need, we hired a full-time position to replace a previous part-time position in November 2022 and were fully staffed with two full-time therapists and a clinical supervisor, but since then, we have experienced worker turnover; one therapist left for another opportunity while another had medical concerns that they needed to focus on. We currently have one full-time therapist on staff while we are working on filling the other positions. We see the social worker shortage impacting our ability to find qualified candidates; this challenge has an even larger impact on rural communities. When we are short staffed, it impacts the ability of our program to provide needed services to our community. We are working to fulfill this need by utilizing staff from other offices who are able to provide services to clients through telehealth when appropriate while our current therapist focuses on clients who are needing in-person services.
Voluntary action CEnter
Meals on Wheels
VAC’s services include Senior Lunches, day care and Head Start program meals and Meals on Wheels. Local support is vital to our ability to continue even at the current level of services. We are grateful for your help as we work hard to meet the basic needs of those that helped to shape our communities. Financial
contributions enable us to provide healthy meals, well-being checks and socialization so vital to homebound seniors and individuals with disabilities.
In addition to helping us to bring the food to the table for those in need donations have enabled the purchase a delivery vehicle.
As all community service providers do, VAC faces challenges in meeting the needs of the communities we serve. Unprecedented food costs, increases in labor costs and state mandates continue to impact our Meals on Wheels service.
Success Story
Randy moved to Ottawa, Illinois where he would enjoy retirement and to live closer to his mom. After his mother passed away in 2017, Randy’s only family members left to call are his niece and her family. in 2018, Randy’s foot became infected, which required amputation. He faces challenges to providing nutritious meals for himself, including being unable to drive, financial constraints, and difficulty preparing meals. He was struggling each month and wasn’t sure where to turn next. He then found out about the Meals on Wheels program. Randy received his first meal in August of 2019. Ever since, things have started to look up for Randy. Randy really enjoys receiving his Meals on Wheels. He says they are good and help him out a great deal. Now Randy doesn’t have to worry about how he is going to prepare a hot healthy meal for himself. Randy also says with VAC’s help, he can better afford the other necessities in life and not have to worry about the expense of food costs.
Success Story
The client came to us after her ex-boyfriend/father of her children attacked her in her home. During the incident, her children watched as she was repeatedly punched in the head. She was strangled twice and lost consciousness both times. Three weeks later, she suffered a stroke (speculated to be the result of the strangulation) and spent five weeks in the hospital. She reached out to Prairie State Legal Services for representation in her Order of Protection case before her stroke and because of that, we were able to file our appearance in her case even though she was unconscious and on a ventilator.
We filed a Motion to Continue because our client was still hospitalized and unable to be at court. The case was continued and the Emergency Order was extended. At our second court date, our client was present and the case went to a contested hearing. She testified about what happened to her at the hands of the respondent. Before we were able to speak with our client after she had the stroke, we were discussing possible hurdles that we may have to overcome in the course of representation, including diminished capacity, memory loss, speech difficulties, brain damage, and asking for continuances while facing the unknown of how long our client could remain unconscious, on a ventilator, and/or hospitalized. And even more and most importantly, how could we best advocate for our client in her absence? Fortunately, our client began to recover quickly and we were able to get permission from her to communicate with her family to facilitate phone calls and appointments, as well as communicate with the State’s Attorney’s Office regarding the respondent’s related criminal case. Our client received a Default Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage and Default Allocation of Parental Responsibilities and Parenting Time. She, with the assistance of law enforcement, was able to finally gain physical custody of her children and see them for the first time in several years.
Prairie State Legal Services
Prairie State Legal Services (PSLS) is a not-for-profit law firm that provides help to individuals in need of free civil legal services. Some of our accomplishments include empowering survivors of domestic violence with the information and legal help they need to stop abuse and build safe, stable lives for themselves and their children, helping clients solve serious housing issues, including eviction, unsafe living conditions, denial of subsidized housing benefits, and improper shut-off of utilities. We help older adults (60+) and people with disabilities end abuse and exploitation and find the safety and care that they need. PSLS helps victims of domestic violence and veterans who have serious civil legal problems that threaten their basic human needs. We help individuals and families obtain and maintain Medicaid and Medicare and obtain coverage for the healthcare services they need. We help older adults and people with disabilities get the help needed to remain in their own homes or secure coverage for long-term care.
Our rural areas often present the biggest challenges. Rural communities typically lack access to crucial services and resources and face economic hardships. Declines in rural populations have the effect of reducing funding which is distributed based on poverty population. Federal funding formulas exclude most rural cities and increased complexity in government grant application and reporting requirements make it difficult for rural governments to compete. In the majority of the communities served by UW-ELC, this is also the case. Access to legal services outside of PSLS are scarce. Prairie State Legal Services is the only free legal aid organization available to those in these communities. There are also fewer pro bono attorneys available in our rural areas. PSLS has relied on organizations like the United Way to help fill this gap.
We’re working to create positive change in our community.
Leadership
United Way of Eastern LaSalle County is a volunteer-led organization guided by a local board of experienced volunteers and a full-time staff dedicated to helping all citizens in Eastern LaSalle County achieve self-sufficiency.
Programs
We support a range of programs and initiatives to address the specific needs of our community. Each program is aimed at promoting self-sufficiency and empowering individuals and families to lead fulfilling lives.
Join us in making an impact
Whether you’re a volunteer, donor, or someone who shares our vision, your involvement is essential. Together, we can continue to make Eastern LaSalle County a place where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.
Change doesn't happen alone
Your donation to United Way creates meaningful, sustainable change across Eastern LaSalle County. With your support, we can continue empowering communities, fostering self-sufficiency, and delivering vital resources where they’re needed most.