Social Service Community Bonds Together In Coronavirus Fight

MERIDEN, CT — The formation of a community foundation to assist in the fight against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and to mobilize resources and create lasting change has led to several local organizations pledging to raise $200,000 over the next two weeks. Last week, the United Way of Meriden and Wallingford met via teleconference with local funders to discuss how the group could assist with the overwhelming challenges that local communities are dealing with as confirmed cases of the coronavirus and deaths across the region, state and beyond continue to build on a daily basis.

The initial group that participated in the meeting quickly expanded beyond the 20 partner agencies the UWMW works with to also include other members of the social service community. The first teleconference included representatives from Cuno Foundation, Liberty Bank Foundation, Ion Bank Foundation, the James H. Napier Foundation, Meriden Foundation, Meriden Rotary Foundation, Wallingford Rotary Foundation, the Fred Ulbrich Memorial Foundation and City Mission.

A seven-member committee then established the Meriden-Wallingford Community Foundation Coronavirus Response Fund, which organizers hope to build to $200,000 in coming weeks.

“We wanted to convey that this fund is separate from both our United Way and that it was specifically to help those nonprofits so impacted by the coronavirus pandemic so they could continue assisting their clients,” George McGoldrick, United Way board president said in a news release issued Friday.

UWMW Executive Director Maria Campos Harlow added that the effort is needed to combat a pandemic that she said “our communities – our world” – has never experienced.

“I am so gratified to see that the entire philanthropic community of which we are a proud part mobilize so quickly with one voice to meet the challenges faced by so many,” she said in the release. “It speaks to the strength of the community and the determination of those donors and foundations with whom we are working that this effort has blossomed so quickly…it makes me proud to live here.”

According to the news release, the United Way of Meriden and Wallingford will be the administrator, and donations can be made through its website or sent by mail to 35 Pleasant Street, Suite 1E, Meriden CT 06450. If requested, donations can be directed specifically to either the Meriden or Wallingford communities, but that is not required, the release stated.