CREDIT: KERRA SEAY
Jackie Corby and Colleen Breen held a raffle for hockey tickets on Nov. 3. All of the money raised will go towards Fanshawe's goal of raising $110,000 for United Way.

Jackie Corby said it was her privileged life that led her to first start working with United Way. Now as a mother, she acknowledges that she is able to provide a charmed life for her family, but her real good comes from the fact that she is willing to help others get there as well.

“There’s people in our community who don’t have the basics, never mind the ‘stuff’,” Corby said. “So I thought my money was better spent helping other people than on getting more stuff.”

Corby is Fanshawe’s United Way sponsored employee. This means that Fanshawe pays her salary in order for her to work for the charity without taking money away from the work that United Way does to support the community. Her role is to assist the committee with their fundraising campaign. Corby connects staff and students at Fanshawe to the problems facing citizens in the city.

Fanshawe’s goal is to raise $110,000 for United Way. But Corby said it’s about more than just giving money.

“Giving is money, it’s time, it can be energy, it can be connecting us with someone who has [London] Knights tickets we can raffle,” Corby said.

Corby said it can be hard for some to understand the need for United Way when they come from a place of privilege like herself, but she urges Fanshawe students and staff to help out in any way they can.

“I think unless you’ve actually used [United Way services] or accessed it you really don’t have any idea what a lot of them are, who the people are that need it, or what some of their problems are. It really hits a lot closer to home than we’d like to believe,” Corby said.

Corby said one in five people in the London-Middlesex region use one of United Way’s 88 services or 55 agencies last year. One in seven people in London lives in poverty, which makes the work United Way does in the city even more important.

Some of the events that the United Way fundraising campaign will be hosting are

Corby said United Way looks for solutions with a lasting change, rather than just “putting a Band- Aid” on the problem.

Colleen Breen, a part-time teacher in the nursing program at Fanshawe and the London Health Sciences Centre sponsored employee, said many of the community agencies she worked with were supported by United Way, something she did not even know at the time.

“I’ve witnessed a profound need that exists within the community through both my nursing role and also in my volunteer work, so that has really inspired me to work with United Way,” Breen said.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to learn from each other, to hear each other’s stories, to support each other in the fundraising initiatives,” Breen said.