UCPWA Projects $425K Loss After Fair, Other Events Canceled

TUSCALOOSA, AL. — United Cerebral Palsy of West Alabama (UCPWA) hopes to weather a slew of financial setbacks due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the road ahead for the nonprofit will not be an easy one without the help of its supporters.

Patch reported Wednesday when UCPWA announced the cancellation of the 2020 West Alabama State Fair — the organization's single-largest fundraising effort. The loss of the fall fundraiser and other events, including the organization's spring crawfish boil, are expected to have a sizable impact on UCPWA's budget and range of services in the near future.

"I estimate, through the end of the calendar year, it's going to be about a $425,000 loss for us," UCPWA Executive Director Randy Mecredy told Patch on Thursday. "That’s revenue just from no longer serving the clients and our fundraiser loss."

UCPWA serves children and adults with disabilities across 16 counties in west Alabama, providing early intervention training, afternoon programs, therapeutic services, summer programs, respite support services and adult day habilitation.

Click here to learn more about UCPWA's offerings.

In the midst of a sustained nationwide economic downturn, Mecredy said UCPWA received a loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but that money soon ran out and the revenue shortfalls on the horizon became that much more apparent.

"We’re just having an extremely difficult time replacing and supplanting revenue loss as a result of billing and cancellation of our major events," he said. "Even though we’re still operating and providing services to some of our participations, not all of them choose to receive those services."

UCPWA's day habilitation program, for example, went from serving 32 individuals to eight.

"It's the same for our community program as well," Mecredy said. "We're only serving about half of who we typically serve and it's just because everyone either has underlying conditions that just don't permit it or other circumstances."

While UCPWA does receive state funding for its programs, Mecredy said events like the fair raised money to cover crucial incidental costs.

He then provided an example, saying on Wednesday participants learned about independent living skills, along with cooking and doing cooking demonstrations. Mecredy explained the participants plan their meal, buy their groceries and bring the items back to UCPWA for the meal to be prepared.

"None of that is covered under state funding," he said. "All of that is paid for by other support. Those are the therapeutic, developmental and crucial vocational skills we teach and the funding for those skills is not covered by the state. There’s other things like the light bill. That isn’t covered. Just to operate the facility, it's all dependent on fundraising."

The decision by the UCPWA Board of Directors to pull the plug on the fair, which is typically held in late October into early November, was made with public health in mind, according to Mecredy, while also considering the added costs that would come along with holding a large-scale event during a pandemic.

"We may have to work with an entertainment company or you work with a provider of all the amusement stuff, so to add on the additional costs of hand sanitizing, distancing, we would have to issue PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and we just can’t afford to do that," he said.

The possibility of cutting certain services persists amid the loss of revenue, Mecredy pointed out, but said the organization is keeping its eyes to the future and hoping support from the community will help the nonprofit continue to afford its range of offerings.

"It all depends on the circumstances," he said. "We have our masquerade ball scheduled for February, but that’s going to be dependent on the condition of things. We typically have a crawfish boil in April, but we had to cancel that this year. I don’t have any virtual fundraiser going on right now, so we’re just pretty much dependent on the benevolence of our supporters."

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