The national director of the United Way is visiting Fort McMurray to look at how Canada-wide donations are being put to work in our community.
Dr. Jacline Nyman said the more than $3 million raised across the country will support those most vulnerable in our community.
“Canadians really care,” said Nyman speaking about the overwhelming amount of donations nation-wide that came in for our community, especially when compared to another of their campaigns.
“On the microsite for United for Refugees, Syrian refugees, collectively across Canada about $1.5 million. When you think that Canadians to date, not only through our United Way system where upwards of $3 million (was donated).”
She said that alone showed the differential which is even more pronounced considering more than $130 million has been donated to the Red Cross.
“It’s unprecedented. That’s what Canadians think about you and your city and your crisis and we know every bit you’d be there for them as much as they’ve tried to give what they can,” she said.
Nyman also said the system is imperfect and sees donations of money where people can’t physically give their time and energy.
But the United Way can use that money and turn it into the supports people need here in our community.
“It’s an immediate response of all of us to say ‘okay, now we need to do this,’ and it becomes singularly focused,” she said, speaking about the initial respose to the wildfire. “One of our challenges is to say, wow, we had a United Way in place for a reason and in this community upwards of $8 million or so a year is needed just to cover the basic costs of your social infrastructure that goes above and beyond what the three levels of government and taxes etc. can do.”
She said it’s important now to recognize that the philanthropy through the United Way was already in place because of a need that existed here.
“Now you have another need. So, it’s layered. I think the biggest challenge will be for the donors and the community to understand that there already was a big need and now this is additional need,” said Nyman.
Recognizing that some of the need will be among the same families is important but so, too, is recognizing that their needs will have changed and possibly grown and that there are people who will find themselves among the most vulnerable for the first time in their lives.
“The complexity begins to say ‘how do we deal with all of our existing social infrastructure need,’ now you have physical infrastructure need. How do you consolidate, not duplicate, and how do you even define what all the vulnerable populations will need from you and now you have new vulnerable populations,” said Nyman.
Bringing the resources to the people most in need will not require reinventing the wheel, Nyman said, but it may involve some innovation to reach the people who would not count themselves among those who qualify for help.
“How do we find and encourage people to understand that they fall into that category and that there is help, you’re not alone, you can tap into this resource and then do it in a way that is swift enough but responsible,” she said.
The United Way will also be working hard to ensure the money that was donated specifically to help with recovery is used for that purpose and they will have accountability back to the donors about how the money was spent.
