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Eric Harrison President and CEO United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL AND NORTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT | 2025 COMMUNITY IMPACT REPORT | 5 Things seem to be particularly challenging this year. We have seen headlines about heightened food insecurity and an increase in homelessness. How is United Way responding? Being responsive to pressing community needs is a part our DNA at United Way. For the third year in a row, we activated the United Way Rapid Response Fund to help keep people in stable housing throughout the winter months. The goal of this fund is shelter diversion, so we work with local municipalities to identify individuals and families who are at risk of becoming homeless. Through a referral system, we provide direct financial assistance to people so that they can make rent, mortgage and utility payments while ensuring their basic needs were met. This year for this first time, we were also pleased to partner with Representative Jaime Foster, Representative Jennifer Leeper and Connecticut United Ways on an Emergency Grocery Assistance Fund. Through this effort we were able to provide grocery store gift cards to people experiencing food insecurity statewide. You entered into a strategic alliance with United Way of West Central Connecticut earlier this year. Tell us more about that? We had a great opportunity to join forces with United Way of West Central Connecticut. The goal of this partnership was to increase impact and maximize operational efficiencies in the 860 region. We are proud to now serve 56 towns in central and northeastern Connecticut, representing one - third of the state. Earlier this year, you sold your long-time building at 30 Laurel Street and recently moved downtown. What went into your decision to move? 30 Laurel was a great home for many years. After the pandemic, I think everyone took a look at their spaces with fresh eyes and for us, we really found that being a landlord and maintaining a building of that size was taking away from our primary mission. By selling the building, we have the opportunity to invest more time and resources back into our community at a time when that is really needed. The building at 30 Laurel Street will become housing, which is great for that neighborhood. We feel so fortunate that with the sale of our building we had the opportunity to truly "come home" and move into a space that is owned by one of our original founding companies, HSB. It is great to be a part of the downtown community. What's next for United Way? There are so many great opportunities ahead and ways for people to get involved in 2026. We are very excited to launch a new initiative called 860Gives. On April 1, we will mobilize the philanthropic community in the 860 region to support nonprofits that are delivering critical services. Over 36 hours, people will have the opportunity to give to the causes they care about most, and nonprofits will have an opportunity to raise additional funds to support their programs, which we know are in very high demand. 860Gives is modeled after a very successful fundraiser managed by United Way of Rhode Island called 401Gives. There is nothing like it in our region, and we are excited to bring this opportunity to our communities this spring. Looking back, our strategic alliance with West Central Connecticut was one of the highlights of this year and I am hopeful that we can take what we have learned and continue to increase our ability to be of service to others in the nonprofit community, with a focus on maximizing efficiency and scaling effective programs and initiatives for greater impact. As always, we will keep monitoring the increased challenges we have been seeing with respect to financial hardship, food insecurity and housing stability, and we will continue to be responsive to emerging needs. We have so many exciting opportunities ahead of us, including a full slate of spring fundraising events and volunteer opportunities that you don't want to miss. To stay up to date on everything we are doing and find ways to get involved, visit our website at unitedwayinc.org.