Amanda Burt, 20, this year's inspirational guest speaker at the 54th Annual United Way Central Alberta kickoff luncheon held at the Cambridge Red Deer Hotel & Conference Centre on Thursday. Burt is a United Way Central Alberta client ambassador.

By Sheldon Spackman

Community Support

United Way Central Alberta kicks off 54th annual fundraising campaign

Sep 12, 2019 | 4:07 PM

Over 400 local supporters of United Way Central Alberta gathered at the Cambridge Red Deer Hotel and Conference Centre on Thursday to help kick-off the organization’s 54th annual fundraising campaign.

The event encourages residents and businesses to get involved by giving, acting and volunteering in order to create a transformational impact in local communities and for the over 35 programs and services funded by United Way Central Alberta.

Thursday’s sold-out fundraising kickoff featured art installations highlighting local issues, raffle ticket sales which brought in $3,910 and a real life story from client ambassador Amanda Burt whose life has been transformed as a result of United Way’s community investments.

Burt suffered a severe brain injury and numerous other injuries at the age of 16, after the vehicle she was driving was t-boned at a rural intersection near Lacombe on Aug. 30, 2015. The crash forced Burt to spend the next 13 months in various hospitals recovering and having to relearn everything from eating to walking.

Burt says United Way Central Alberta, which supports Catholic Social Services, has had a significant impact on her life.

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“They’ve impacted my life by pushing my rehabilitation further than just from the hospital,” she explains. “Rehabilitation is more than getting back to normal physically, it’s about reintroducing yourself to the community and that was the biggest support they did for me. I had a disability support worker come twice a week and we would do whatever I wanted to do, so we would go to grocery stores and go grocery shopping or walk to coffee shops and it just got me out of the house which was something that I didn’t experience for a long time after the accident.”

Burt, soon to turn 21, is now a student at RDC enrolled in a certificate program for Early Learning and Childcare. Reflecting on her struggles and challenges over the past four years, Burt points out how important mental health is.

“We all should be talking about it, it’s one of the only things that connects everyone,” she said. “No matter the language, no matter the race, it connects everyone. So let’s talk about it and let’s stop making it such an embarrassing thing to have.”

Burt says she is now in need of a service dog and has started a GoFundMe campaign to help in that respect, but adds her main message is one of support.

“We’re all human, we’re all trying our best,” adds Burt. “We need to stop being so negative and putting everyone down and doing awful things. We are all in this together.”

Brett Speight, CEO, United Way Central Alberta, says their four-month long annual fundraising campaign helps thousands of citizens each year and addresses numerous social issues.

“By raising these funds, we’re able to provide grants to the different agencies that fit within our priority areas of income, education and wellness,” he explains. “That allows them to focus on delivering the programs versus having to hire somebody to raise funds.

“The kick-off is always important because it kind of gets that energy going around our campaign season and allows people who attend, to kind of take that excitement back to the workplace or to their clubs or agencies and really share that excitement.”

The theme for this year’s campaign is “#UNIGNORABLE.”

“It’s about using imagery and art and colour to create conversations around these different social issues that face people in central Alberta,” says Speight. “What excites me the most is seeing the impact of not only the donations of the community, but the impact of the work that we do when we do collaborative work with other groups like Central Alberta Poverty Reduction Alliance, Red Deer Local Immigration Partnership and partnering with corporations like Enmax to provide a utility relief fund that didn’t exist within the city.”

For more information on the campaign, opportunities or other upcoming events, visit caunitedway.ca.

United Way Central Alberta’s 2018 fundraising campaign raised $2 million.