Help us Celebrate the People That Make An Impact in our Community

The staff at United Way of Southwest Michigan have been hard at work planning our Annual Celebration event since late last year. As they started making an outline of the people we would be honoring in our community at this event, something simple yet profound took me by surprise: the sheer number of people associated with United Way in some manner is huge, and without them, impact in our community would not have been possible.

Our impact is made up of a core set of passionate individuals and organizations that band together to make sure our community has what it needs to serve the most vulnerable populations. Our staff, board members, sponsors, grantors, event volunteers, investment teams, impact committee, employee campaign coordinators, municipal & community partners, and impact partners all make up this number of what is truly thousands of people. To think there are thousands of people helping thousands of others is incredibly heartwarming.

I invite you to hear about these individuals and the impact they make by attending our Annual Celebration. It’s coming up Thursday, April 24 at the Lake Michigan College Mendel Center Grand Upton Hall beginning at 6pm.

The work being done in our communities is so special, we’ve attracted the attention of our United Way Worldwide organization. John Farden, the Executive Vice President of Global Advancement & Operations will be our guest speaker. He’ll share how United Ways across the country bring communities together, especially during times of immense change. With government funding changes looming, all community organizations will have to be more targeted with our work to continue impacting populations in need of help.

During our Celebration event, we’ll also recognize those individuals and organizations that have gone above and beyond in 2024 to make their communities better and brighter. In particular, we’ll unveil this year’s highly coveted volunteer recognition awards: The Susan L. Dobrich Volunteer Leadership Award for Cass County, and Margaret B. Upton Volunteer Leadership Award for Berrien County.

If you attend, you’ll also be able to hear about the work being done by a few of our impact partners in a set of special video vignettes and stories from our speakers. This event is also a great place to network with other like minded individuals that love to serve their communities.

Our deadline for registration has been extended for a few more days so we can catch every last one of you that might want to attend to hear these great stories and meet great people. To join us, all you have to do is visit uwsm.org/celebrate-impact and RSVP at the Register button. It’s just $40 per person, or a table of 8 for $300, and will include a great pasta bar dinner from the Mendel Center.

As you might imagine, it takes quite a bit of effort to put this event together each year. We do it not to have a party for ourselves, but to instead share the good news of great impact happening all around us that wouldn’t happen without friends and neighbors coming together.

We’d also like to thank our incredible sponsors for helping to bring this event to you. They include our Series sponsors Silver Beach Pizza and Michigan Works! Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren; Platinum sponsor Corewell Health; Gold sponsors Sturgis Bank and the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber; Silver sponsor Kruggel Lawton CPA; and Bronze sponsor The Purpose Partners.

We look forward to celebrating our people and our impact with you soon!