History

The United Way was founded in Denver, Colorado in 1887 as the Charity Organizations Society with the mission to be a planning organization that would identify community needs and bring funds together to meet the needs of "social welfare cases". The organization grew and eventually became known as the Community Chest.

In May of 1933 the Community Chest of Licking County was established and the organization raised $43,570 which supported the Boy Scouts, Child Health Camp (now known as Camp O'Bannon), Girl Scouts, Newark City Hospital, Salvation Army and the YMCA.

Over the years, the organization's names have changed from United Fund to United Appeal and finally in 1973, we became the United Way of Licking County.

Since that time, we have completed multiple community assessments in an effort to continue identifying community needs and priorities. The number of programs we fund has increased to 56 programs at 24 agencies, including five of our original partner agencies.

In 2008, United Way celebrated its 75th Anniversary of meeting the needs of our community's residents. United Way will continue to serve as an active leader in Licking County to identify needs and bring the resources together to meet those needs.