August First Fridays

Last Friday night was the First Friday event in downtown Coshocton. This has grown into such a wonderful family activity in our community.

With our annual Kick Off just around the corner, we took this opportunity to show off some of our 14 Longaberger baskets we will be raffling off at the event.

I'll try to get some up close pictures of these basket in the near future so you can check them out!

We also handed out free popcorn and bottles of water to those passing by. We had some of our wonderful board members there to help out with the event. This is a great night to talk with fellow community members and work together as a team to make such a pleasant night for Coshocton.

We even had the Mayor stop by and join us for some jump rope. He was really quite good!

What a great night! I hope to see you at the September First Friday Event!

Quite a donation!

The United Way of Coshocton was blessed this spring to get an unusual donation. A donor, who has asked to stay annonymous, donated a mobile home to the United Way. His mother had passed away and he hadn't been able to sell it. He wanted to move on with life, so he decided to gift it to us. We in turn, contracted with Peddicord Rice Auction Realty and held an auction. The trailer sold on June 30th for $21,000!

Needless to say we are thrilled! A huge THANK YOU goes out to the generous family who donated the home, to Peddicord Rice for bringing great results, the Coshocton Tribune for some great press on the event and to everyone who turned out that evening to show your support. The home sold to a nice family that is going to move it onto their property in order to move their elderly parents closer to them. This was a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.

If you have something different that you would like to donate to the United Way, give us a call!

We did it!

Thank you Coshocton! I know it's been a long time since I've blogged and I apologize. However, we have been working hard to pull together our community and achieve our goal! Thank you to all of those board members, division chairs and volunteers who worked so hard to make this happen. To date we are at 102.1% of our goal. -Raising $383,040.03! That's awesome!!

Last week we had our Annual Meeting and Awards Presentations. It was very well attended (especially being a very cold early morning.) We recognized all of our generous supporters along with thanking our 2007-08 Corporate Sponsor Jeff Drennen Dealerships. Smurfit Stone Containers was named, for the 8th year in a row, the Top Giver with pledges over $78,000.

We also were excited to announce the 2008-09 Corporate Sponsor: Ohio Heritage Bank. We are thrilled to have them on board and are looking forward to a great year of working together.

Campaign Kick Off

wow!!!!!

I know, I apologize. It has been a while since I have updated the blog. I think this will be worth the wait.

The 3rd annual "Taste of Coshocton County" happened on August 30th. What a night! The turnout was unbelieveable. Dave Powers, one of the great committee members estimated that we had easily 500 people there that night. What a wonderful thing for Coshocton! For those of you who don't know, it was the campaign kick off event.

There were 16 food vendors from around the county , who offered tastes of their specialty. For only $10.00 a ticket you could choose 10 different samples. I don't think anyone walked away hungry. The restaurants did a great job of bringing a variety of things to try.

A huge thank you to everyone who planned, helped or attended this evening.

What a success!!

Canal Days Parade

The evening if August 18th was a perfect evening for the Canal Days parade. The United Way proudly marched and passed out candy. The streets were packed with kids of all ages. It was wonderful to see so many people out in Coshocton. A big Thank You to the volunteers who marched with us! Farrah Cunningham and her two handsome boys -representing First Step FVIS, Hannah Frank and Alli McCoy from Roscoe Recreation, and Anna Parkhill, Connie Lahna and Skylar and Jade Hasseman.

Two of our other great agencies, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts followed us with great entries in the parade as well.

The Boy Scouts were camping on their float.

Mighty fine gentlemen!

The Girl Scouts, nicely dressed in their uniforms too, marched shortly behind. The daisies had a blast driving their power wheels down the street. What fun!

Thank you everyone who made this evening a special night for Coshocton County!

Business After Hours

What an exciting night! A big thank you to everyone who attended the Chamber After Hours last night. United Way and the Jeff Drennen Dealership hosted the event. A hot, humid day turned into a stormy evening, but that didn't stop us! The event was very well attended. Dave Powers from the Coshocton Hospital had a wonderful display of food. The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and the American Red Cross set up nice displays to show off what great programs they have.

A big thank you to Dave and the Hospital and to Jeff & Stacey Drennen and staff who opened their doors to us for the evening.

July Volunteer of the Month

Congratualtions to Doris Howell, July's Volunteer of the Month!

Doris Howell, who volunteers for the RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program), has been named the United Way of Coshocton County Volunteer of the Month for July.

You can learn more about Doris and her volunteering on the website at www.coshoctonunitedway.org