LULING — The United Way of St. Charles Board of Directors approved a total program expenditure amount of $2,776,063 for the 2016-17 fiscal year at its June meeting.

United Way of St. Charles uses this funding to provide support to local agencies in St. Charles Parish. Some of the agencies approved for funding include Catholic Charities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cancer Association of Greater New Orleans, American Red Cross, Youth Empowerment Project and Alpha Daughters of Zion.

An expansion to the Second Harvest School Backpack Program was also awarded, allowing six schools in St. Charles Parish to serve 560 children each week.

In addition to providing support to agencies, United Way of St. Charles also develops and implements programs that target specific needs in St. Charles Parish that are not addressed by any other agencies.

These programs, designed to help people help themselves, include Success By 6®, Get Fit United and Money Matters: Financial Stability Program.

United Way of St. Charles is able to provide support to agencies and develop programs due to donations made by contributors in the community.

All donations made through the United Way of St. Charles annual campaign stay in St. Charles Parish, unless a donor requests their contribution be sent elsewhere.

“Through great community support of our campaign and the utilization of reserve funds, we feel very fortunate to be able to provide additional funding this year to meet the growing needs of our community,” stated John Dias, UWSC Executive Director. “Donors should feel good knowing that our Campaign grew by 3 percent last year but our program budget and services grew by 5 percent, so we are investing in the community faster than our Campaign is growing.”

“United Way of St. Charles would like to thank the volunteers involved in making the community investment decisions. Our volunteers spent a lot of time reviewing the requests for funding and visiting with our partner agencies to understand what services they provide to the community with United Way funds,” stated Dias.

United Way of St. Charles is a non-profit organization that raises funds to support local agencies and programs in the areas of education, income and health.

For more information about United Way of St. Charles, visit uwaysc.org or call 985-331-9063.