United Way raises $1.5 million in 2017, Clark County falls short of goal

“We came up just shy, but we’re making incremental progress,” he said.

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Champaign County generated almost $272,000 in contributions and Madison County raised $153,000.

The United Way was able to raise $1.08 million in Clark County in 2016.

McGregor said despite the group not being able to reach their goal for 2017, he’s happy with the progress they’ve made and thinks it’s a good sign about the community as a whole.

“It’s increased over years past,” he said. “I think it’s saying that the economy has gotten better so people feel that they’re able to make contributions to groups like the United Way and that we have an organized staff that can run a campaign.”

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Funds raised by the group are distributed to nonprofit agencies in the area that are focused on providing services that address health, income and education issues. In 2015, almost $1 million was given to more than 50 nonprofits in the three-county region.

Kerry Pedraza, the executive director of United Way of Clark, Champaign and Madison Counties, said the organization will have a meeting on Thursday to determine how the funds raised will be distributed.

McGregor said he encourages people to give to the campaign this year, no matter how small their contribution might be.

“Even for the people that can only give a dollar a week, if we all gave a dollar a week, it would be an amazing amount of money,” he said. “The smallest gift is just as important as the largest gift.”

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The United Way also honored several individuals and groups at an awards ceremony which took place last week, including: