LAURINBURG — The United Way of Scotland County didn’t let COVID-19 stop its annual Day of Caring.
Most years volunteers come together at Laurinburg Presbyterian to fellowship over breakfast and hear about the new campaign goal for the United Way. They then separate to the various non-profits across the county for projects ranging from helping with yardwork outside the Literacy Council to installing fire alarms with the American Red Cross.
This year due to social distancing, the event had to be held a little differently.
Volunteers were able to do projects at home for the local nonprofits and on Friday drove through a circle at the James Morgan Complex to not only drop off their completed projects but also to learn more about each of the nonprofits.
“When they come in they’ll get a web address and when they circle through the drive-thru there are displays from all of our agencies that we support,” said Executive Director Coy Moody. “And then they’ll use that website to listen to audio clips from each agency which has a 15 to 30-second blurb about what they do.”
Moody added that this way could be more helpful to the agencies as those coming through are learning about all of them and not just the one they would be working with that day.
“I don’t think that a lot of Scotland County residents know what our nonprofits do,” Moody said. “It gives them an opportunity and sees and then the audio clip tells them what services they offer. It’s a more personalized approach.”
Despite the change in format, the nonprofits were still excited to have the community come out and partake in Day of Caring.
“We always look forward to Day of Caring and having the volunteers come out to help with the Habitat Project,” said Habitat for Humanity’s Director Chris Carpenter. “It’s unfortunate this year because of the pandemic that we’re not able to do that but we’re happy to be out here promoting the United Way and Coy did a great job setting this up.”
Project INASMUCH Founder Virginia Ray was also happy to still be a part of the day and hoped to have a good response as one of the projects was handwriting “Jesus Loves You” on brown paper bags which are filled with snacks and given to students across the county by the agency.
“They would usually make 700 bags and we were overcome with people,” Ray said. “So this is new but it’s new for everyone. But this has been great and Coy had done a wonderful job planning this out.”
While Day of Caring did take the day to collect the projects people have been working on for the past month, Moody encouraged the community to keep working on the projects to bring in at a later time.
“The projects are still listed online,” Moody said. “These are projects that the nonprofits are going to need throughout the year, it’s not just a one-day thing. So if you have 30 minutes at home with your kids and want to do something those are projects you can do and we’ll take them at the United Way office.”
The Day of Caring also kicks off the United Way’s campaign season and this year they’re trying to raise $280,000.
“It’s a little bit less but we tried to take into account the effect COVID would have,” Moody said. “We didn’t want to over-promise to our agencies this year so we cut it back a little bit. But we are hoping to raise more than that.”
The campaign will be doing some virtual events like a Duck Derby to help meet this year’s goal.
“We’re having to adjust and go with it,” said Campaign Co-Chair Julieann Todd. “But the community has been very supportive.”
Todd began working with the United Way last year and has jumped into several committees and is excited to work as co-chair on the campaign this year.
“I’m excited,” Todd said. “I just like helping the community and everyone here works as a big team and it’s been very easy to just jump right in. Especially with COVID, it’s felt good to still be able to help the community come together in some way.”
For information, visit the United Way of Scotland County’s website at www.uwscotco.org or contact 910-276-6064.
Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected].
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