Page 23 - 2022 Chester County Guide & CCCBI Membership Directory
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    United Way’s services are manifold, including company and individual volunteer programs as well as support for other local nonprofits, such as the Friends Association in West Chester (bottom right).
UNITED WAY OF CHESTER COUNTY
The United Way of Chester County has set itself an ambitious mission: “Our goal is to fight for the education, the health and the financial stability of every person in Chester County,” said President and CEO Christopher Saello.
More specifically, the United Way focuses on the needs of
what it calls ALICE — an acronym that stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. “These are working people in our community that live above the federal poverty line, so they don’t qualify for as many programs, but they’re below the self-sufficiency line,” Saello said. “They are maybe one
broken-down car away from financial
crisis.”
One major support program for this
population is the United Way’s Mobile
Home Tax Reassessment project. While
many Chester County residents rely on
mobile homes as affordable housing,
“there’s a flaw in the state tax code that
requires mobile homes to be taxed like
a house, but they depreciate like a car,”
Saello said. “So if you bought a mobile home
for $30,000 about 30 years ago, it’s not worth
that anymore, but you’re being taxed as if it’s brand-
new.”The only way to fix that flaw is by going through the county’s reassessment program. The United Way helps mobile homeowners navigate that program. To date, the nonprofit has helped facilitate 765 successful reassessments, saving the homeowners $6.7 million in tax dollars over the next 10 years.
The United Way also supports local residents through a volunteer income-tax assistance program that completed more than 2,000 returns last year and returned $4.5 million to the community.
During the pandemic, the United Way stepped up for other nonprofits by running the countywide
COVID-19 response fund, which provided a source of revenue to more than 100 local organizations that weren’t able to hold their usual fundraisers.
Corporate gifts and paycheck deduction programs are great ways for local employers to support the United Way, Saello noted. But he
also encouraged local companies to sponsor their employees for the United Way’s Leadership Training Program, which
instructs trainees on how to be nonprofit board members. “That is very needed right now,” he said.
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