READING, Pa. – United Way of Berks County President Tammy White says the situation has become \u201ca perfect storm,\u201d with state and federal dollars stalled at the same time that the demand for help is rising.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not having the dollars we need to help people in our community,\u201d White said. \u201cThe needs are increasing because people don\u2019t have the support systems they\u2019re accustomed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to data from United Way of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations, the number of residents affected by service reductions has jumped to more than 241,000 statewide. Nearly 60% of nonprofits are expected to run out of emergency funds by the end of October.<\/p>\n
Locally, White says agencies like Safe Berks and the Community Action Program have already cut staff or temporarily closed. Others, including food banks and childcare centers, are struggling to keep up as federal programs like SNAP face disruptions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese nonprofits are working with less money, and their staff are stressed and exhausted,\u201d White said. \u201cThey\u2019re doing everything they can to hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n
United Way is encouraging residents to donate, volunteer, and reach out to their local legislators. White says while philanthropy helps, it can\u2019t replace government funding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – United Way of Berks County President Tammy White says the situation has become \u201ca perfect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,8505,28,9187,736,128,130,129,9186,176,9188],"class_list":["post-11800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-food-banks","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-association-of-nonprofit-organizations","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-tammy-white","tag-united-way","tag-united-way-of-berks-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}