Mike Wolanin | The Republic Volunteers Mugdha Patwardhan, from left, Brian Hardy and Andrea Kemp build a bench at Calvary Community Church’s Garden of Eden for the United Way’s Day of Service in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025.
Over 300 volunteers took part in 26 projects for 18 organizations around the community as part of United Way of Bartholomew County’s annual Day of Service.
Though each individual only spent a few hours volunteering in 36 shifts, those hours really add up. According to United Way of Bartholomew County Director of Communications and Marketing Magen Pillar, those hours total to around 1,100 hours in dedicated time volunteering, and that is equal to about $33,000 in community impact.
“Our volunteers are incredible, this is just such an amazing day for United Way and for our community and we are so grateful for our volunteers,” Pillar said.
Volunteers spent Thursday completing various tasks for local nonprofit agencies, essentially whatever the agency needed completing, Pillar said. That meant organizing donations at Sans Souci, setting up for the Columbus Scottish Festival taking place this weekend or assembling benches at Calvary Community Church’s Garden of Eden.
“The really unique thing about the project is the work that the volunteers are doing is critical work for the agencies, so this frees up the agencies’ time to see the people that they help everyday,” Pillar said. “So these are projects that the agencies’ need done but they don’t always have time to get to and so it’s whatever they need done.”
While the volunteer pool was a little less this year than previous years, the volunteers numbers match what local agencies need.
An Impact Lunch was also held midday at Amazing Joe’s. Pillar said over 350 people signed up to attend the Impact Lunch across two sessions this year.
“… our community always shows up and we are so grateful for them,” Pillar said.
All proceeds from the lunch go towards United Way’s campaign of lifting 1,000 families out of poverty and into self-sufficiently, or put 1,000 families making household income 200% more than the federal poverty line, within 2,000 days, and making homelessness rare, brief and non-reoccurring.
That campaign, which United Way took on in partnership with organizations within its social service network and the City of Columbus, has been making strides. Last month, they reported that since its launch in 2023, they have helped house 82 previously unhoused individuals secure stable housing and prevented 67 people from falling into homelessness. They have also lifted 300 families out of poverty and have reduced homelessness by around 60%, Pillar said.
“Our main role is to really build and support a really strong social service sector and we are honed in on reducing poverty,” Pillar said.
