WHY I LIVE UNITED?  

No matter where we are or how we choose to live our daily lives, every decision, big or small, we make along the way impacts others.  Try this, pick any ordinary daily task or life choice and follow how that decision affects another person.  Say you choose not to iron your clothes and take everything to a dry cleaner, you are supporting someone else's job by becoming one more customer helping to keep the doors open.  This small choice makes a big difference for someone else.  Or, let's say you choose to make a life choice to leave your domestic or professional job to go back to school, you have now become one more person participating in the higher education system in which enrollment influences programs and funding.  And, you may have indirectly created a job opportunity for someone else in the work force you left that is desperately seeking employment.  We may never know the ripple effect of how our personal decisions directly impact someone else but what if we did.  It is possible.

It is possible to see others succeed and benefit from our choices.  All you need to do is decide to provide a few acts of kindness and generosity by choosing to be counted in a collective effort focused on 23 local programs that help lift people up when life has presented them with unfortunate situations or seeking to improve their current conditions.

What if you simply made one more decision today and committed to make a thoughtful effort in helping someone else?   It is just a simple choice, like any other, but made with intent.  By making this decision, you are joining a host of other community businesses and citizens choosing to be intentional about giving and advocating for others in need.   You are choosing to "Live United"!  That is why I chose to become involved with Twin County United Way.  I wanted to give back to my community with intent and thoughtfulness.  I wanted my time and personal financial resources utilized to their fullest potential; to help someone, somehow, with impact. 

Twin County United Way gathers each of our individual resources, no matter how small, and makes one big, powerful difference right here at home.   The results are, by far, more reaching than my available resources could have ever achieved on their own.  It is "Strength in Numbers!" 

Please consider making one more meaningful decision today.  Connect to your community.  Choose to give, in time or financial resources, to Twin County United Way and be counted in making a big difference for others in need. 

Give.  Advocate. Volunteer.

Jaynie Bentz

Port of Lewiston

TCUW Board Member