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 William S. "Tom" Thomas
Board Chair
John T. Hanna
First Vice Chair
Diane B. Doiron
Second Vice Chair
Blas Garza
Third Vice Chair
G. Paul Didier
Secretary
Rick W. Scott
Chief Financial Officer
General Members:
James Armstrong
Gayle Beebe
Thomas Brashears
Lance Connor
William Curtis
Henry Dubroff
Janet Garufis
Joe Holland
George Leis
Bob Montgomery
Richard Nightingale
Michael Noling
David Prichard
Brian Sarvis
Andreea Serban
Ron Werft
John Wigle
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| Contact Information |
Main Office
320 East Gutierrez Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Branch Office 595 Alamo Pintado, C Solvang, CA 93436
Phone: (805) 965-8591
To sign up or opt out of future mailings, email
Kerstin Padilla at |
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88th Annual Awards Celebration
United Way of Santa Barbara County hosted the 88th Annual Awards Celebration on May 2, 2011...
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21st Century School in Watts 
Santa Barbara County Community Leaders and Educators Explore a 21st Century School in Watts, CA...
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Young Leaders Society's "Day of the Child"
On Saturday, April 16th, 2011 YLS volunteers participated in the 2nd Annual Day of the Child & Day of the Book Celebration at the Santa Barbara Central Library...
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Reading Plus and Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Reading Plus, which is part of United Way of Santa Barbara County's United for Literacy program recently announced some exciting news...
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UCSB campaign shows big increase in 2011
The 2010-2011 UCSB campaign has come to a close and the results were impressive!
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88th Annual Awards Celebration
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| | George Leis, President & CEO of Santa Barbara Bank & Trust accepting an award from Paul Didier,
President & CEO of United Way of Santa Barbara County
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United Way of Santa Barbara County hosted its 88th Annual Awards Celebration at the Four Seasons Biltmore Resort in Montecito, on May 2, 2011. Janet Garufis, President and CEO of Montecito Bank & Trust and United Way's Campaign Chair, presented the evening's awards assisted by mistress of ceremonies Debby Davison, and others.
Special appreciation was given to Joe Holland, a long-time volunteer of United Way who has served in the allocations committee, Board of Directors and other community impact committees for more than 12 years; AGIA Insurance Services for their employee and corporate contributions and involvement in volunteer activities; and to Santa Barbara Bank & Trust for their continued outstanding employee & corporate participation in helping United Way reach the community driven 10-year goals.
A total of 29 awards were given to local volunteers, as well as businesses, schools, organizations and the individuals that lead them for their outstanding support of United Way of Santa Barbara County and its numerous programs.
To view and purchase photographs from the event, please click here.
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Santa Barbara County Community Leaders and Educators Explore a 21st Century High School in Watts
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Left to right: Laura Finlay, Bob, Paul Didier, Wes Gibson, John Hanna, and Mike Rattray.
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On April 25, 2011, United Way of Santa Barbara County (UWSBC) and a group of local Santa Barbara community leaders and educators had the opportunity to visit and research College Ready Academy High School #11 in Watts, CA. The trip was coordinated by UWSBC and made possible through the generosity of the Santa Barbara Foundation and Santa Barbara Airbus.
The visit to this unique learning environment offered participants the opportunity to explore and learn from an innovative best model practice that is dramatically increasing the graduation rate and learning skills of high school students in Los Angeles. Local leaders returned to Santa Barbara with some new insights that could potentially be applied within the Santa Barbara County education system and community programs.
College Ready Academy's hybrid learning model has not only resulted in the fastest turn around low-performing school, but its implementation of a 21st century technological model utilizes technology to advance students' education while exposing students to the ever-evolving world.
As an educationally focused organization, United Way is pursuing community driven 10-year education goals that aim to increase the graduation rate of Santa Barbara County students by 50% and increase the amount of students reading at or above grade level by 50%. A major initiative helping our community achieve this goal is United For Literacy (UFL).
UFL utilizes a variety of innovative tools, including a web-based accelerated reading improvement program called Reading Plus. Reading Plus is currently being used by more than 1000 students at over 20 local Santa Barbara County schools and community organizations.
The visit to College Ready Academy High School #11 helped surface new concepts that have the potential to be integrated within our community's existing systems and practices to help improve Santa Barbara County children and youth education.
United Way is committed to improving education in the Santa Barbara County community for the next ten years. To do this, United Way will continue to explore innovative ways that can help our community's children and youth achieve success.
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Young Leaders Society's "Day of the Child"
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YLS Volunteers at Day of the Child
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On Saturday, April 16th, 2011 Young Leaders Society volunteers participated in the 2nd Annual Day of the Child & Day of the Book Celebration at the Santa Barbara Central Library. More than 1000 people and various community partners participated in the celebration, which aimed to promote reading & library use in our community.
YLS hosted an arts & craft table, where the children were able to create bookmarks and picture books from magazine cut-outs. This wonderful event created a positive environment for the families who attended while encouraging literacy, which is one of YLS's goals.
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Reading Plus and Miami - Dade County Public Schools
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La Cumbre Junior High award winners
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Reading Plus, which is part of United Way of Santa Barbara County's United for Literacy program, recently announced some exciting news. Reading Plus is currently implemented or has been piloted in 23 schools in Santa Barbara County.
Miami- Dade County Public Schools, which have partnered with Reading Plus for the past six years, was named a finalist for the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education. This is the district's fourth time as a finalist in the past six years.
The $1 million Broad Prize is awarded annually to urban school districts that demonstrate the best overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among poor and minority students. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation established this award 10 years ago and schools cannot apply or be nominated. Selection is based on publicly available academic performance data which is reviewed by a review board and selection jury. The foundation does not play a role in selecting the finalists or the winner.
National statistics show that 68% of 8th graders can't read at their grade level, and most will never catch up. The national high school graduation rate is only 70% with that number decreasing to almost 50% for African-American and Latino students.
Picture Above - Some of the La Cumbre Junior High School award winners who received free passes (UWSBC supplied $300 for passes to high performing reading students) to the SB Fair and Expo. These students had the highest rate of improvement on Reading Plus for the past three months.
If you are interested in learning more about Reading Plus or the United for Literacy program, please contact Laura Finlay at lfinlayCI@unitedwaysb.org
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UCSB United Way Campaign Shows Big Increase in 2011
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UCSB Campaign Committee members present campaign check to United Way staff
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The 2010-2011 UCSB campaign has come to a close and the results were impressive! This year UCSB employees contributed more than $114,000, an increase of 8% over last year's campaign. This total was reached with the help of more than 400 generous donors on campus.
In addition to contributing to United Way financially, UCSB employees have been very supportive through volunteerism. UCSB was well represented at United Way's Day of Caring last September and has hosted Fun in the Sun participants for educational field trips several times.
United Way thanks this year's UCSB Campaign Committee: Ron Cortez (Senior Campaign Manager), Sue Hawkins (Campaign Chair), Dave Bothman, Alejandra Carmona, Matt Erickson, Sandra Featherson, Cathe Hedrick, Julie Miller, Lisa Morrill, Carol Sauceda, and Sally Vito, as well as the 120 department representatives that helped make this success possible!
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About Us
Through the Power of Partnership™, whether a neighborhood project or a community-wide initiative, United Way of Santa Barbara County unites people from government, business, education, faith groups, non profits, as well as ordinary citizens, to develop innovative strategies for community change that will have an impact for years to come.
Click Here to Read More About United Way of Santa Barbara County's local Community Impact
Links to Evaluation Reports for some of our Partnerships:
GIVE. ADVOCATE. VOLUNTEER.
SANTA BARBARA UNITED.
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