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How We Help
Click Here to view our DVD, "Making Help Happen." Hear directly from those whose lives have been changed. Running time 5:26.
We answer every call...
Need Help? Start Here.
If you or someone you know needs help, call 2-1-1 or
click nj211.org. It’'s free, confidential and
available 24/7. In the last year alone, 150,000 calls to
2-1-1 were answered and nj211.org handled 2 million database
searches on the website.
2-1-1 is the gateway to health and social services, government assistance, and
local community resources. A call to 2-1-1 or click onto nj211.org makes the simple but critical connection to caring professionals who know community resources and can make help happen.
Whether it is a community wide emergency or an every day concern, callers can find assistance for everything from healthcare to housing, shelters to food banks, legal aid to counseling.
In the aftermath of a natural disaster or crisis, remember that 2-1-1 is a good source for support services and recovery assistance.
2-1-1 is available throughout New Jersey from any traditional, wireless, or VOIP phone as well as from TTY equipment. There is multi-lingual access, and all calls are confidential.
We help in a crisis...
Bergen County's United Way established the Compassion Fund to provide direct help with basic necessities for people in crisis - whether the struggle is personal, or the result of a community-wide disaster. It is how we make help happen in direct, concrete and vital ways.
Right now our community faces a significant challenge. In the last year, calls to 2-1-1 from Callers desperately seeking financial assistance - have doubled.
It’s no surprise. The cost of living in Bergen County makes it difficult for families whose lives have been turned upside down by the current financial crisis – job loss, foreclosures, and the soaring costs of food and utilities.
At Bergen County’s United Way we’re organized to respond to this increased need in direct and vital ways through our Compassion Fund. Keeping families in their homes is our top priority. The fund is used to pay utilities, provide food, and stop evictions. Once we’ve stabilized the crisis, we connect people – through 2-1-1 – to a network of community resources that can help them rebuild.
Warm Homes/Cool Homes
Warm Homes
For families and individuals struggling to pay their heating and electric bills, the cold winter months can be especially long. In Bergen County, low income individuals and families labor everyday to make ends meet and maintain their homes. The slightest upset to stretched monthly budgets can cause a spiral into financial crisis.
The Warm Homes Program provides direct financial assistance for home heating when there is a threat of the loss of service.
Cool Homes
Every year, high summer temperatures contribute to poor health, even death, of Bergen County residents.
Children with asthmatic conditions, frail seniors and families living in cramped apartments with poor ventilation suffer when July and August days soar above 90 degrees.
The Cool Homes Program at Bergen County's United Way provides window air-conditioner units to low income people whose health is compromised by the summer heat.
We hold lives together...
Military Family Assistance
Our Military Family Assistance Project supports the families
of presently deployed military personnel. Many face escalating
financial crisis as a result of extended assignments, putting
their families in financial peril. Direct financial assistance
is provided to ensure that no family’'s basic needs
go unmet.
We have recently joined with the North Jersey Media Group
Foundation and 211 to introduce the Fund for Military Families.
It is our opportunity to help our servicemen and servicewomen
here at home.
Contributions may be sent to:
The Fund for Military Families
c/o North Jersey Media Group Foundation
Attn: Legal Department
150 River road
Hackensack, NJ 07601
For credit card contributions visit: www.njmgf.org or call 201.646.4029.
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2007 The Record (Bergen Co./NJ) Staff photographer - Tarig Zehawi
When Pvt. Christopher McSherry, home from Iraq on disability,
needed help, Bergen County's United Way paid his mortgage
during a period of financial crisis. To read more about
this story click here.
We build homes...
Starter Homes for the Working Poor
The lack of affordable housing is the highest priority human service need in our community. Every day, thousands of Bergen County families are forced to make impossible choices between their most basic requirements for medicine, food and clothing and the cost of housing.
Bergen County's United Way has stimulated the development
of new affordable housing by creating a predevelopment capital
bank. BCUW finances construction and rehabilitation of starter
homes by not for profits experienced in developing affordable
housing. The organizations also educate new homeowners about
money management and property maintenance. To date, we have
developed and/or financed 53 units of affordable housing
including barrier free and special needs (teen moms and
their babies) construction.
The result is that working poor families gain equity, foster pride of ownership, and achieve social stability by having a permanent home. To date projects are underway or have been completed in Garfield, Bergenfield, Cliffside Park, Hackensack, Allendale, Fairview, Bergenfield, Englewood and Teaneck.
At the groundbreaking of the Cliffside Park project.
Madeline Corporation - with "patient financing"
from BCUW's Capital Bank - has built condominium units for
10 low-income first time homebuyers.
 We
foster philanthropy...
Women United in Philanthropy
Bringing more women into philanthropy through education and colleagueship
In 2005, Bergen County's United Way launched Women United
in Philanthropy, the first women's giving circle in New
Jersey. Women United in Philanthropy has opened the door
for women of all ages and means to become smart, effective
philanthropists who use the power of their purses to change
the world around them.
Women United in Philanthropy is dedicated to promoting
the economic power of women to affect change in each other's
lives. Membership in the circle is extended to women who
contribute $1,000 annually to the collective fund and vote
each year to award a large grant to a local program helping
women.
This year the group awarded $100,000 to Zoe's Place Inc. for their program, "The Cupcake Factory. Read More
Young Leaders
LIVE UNITED
M&T Bank has stepped forward to sponsor Young Leaders, joining Bergen County’s United Way to launch a dynamic new enterprise to build philanthropic leadership for the next generation. The group which already has an online presence on the social networking site Facebook, offers young people the chance to be informed about pressing local needs, as well as, exclusive opportunities for leadership development, service projects, and social gatherings." Visit our Young Leaders page.
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