Centre County United Way Bringing Community Together for Annual Day of Caring to Help Local Nonprofits

Centre County United Way will once again bring together hundreds of community members to help support local businesses and organizations for its annual “Day of Caring” on Thursday, Oct. 1.

The event will connect volunteers with local nonprofits for hands-on service projects including landscaping, painting, cleaning, organizing and facility improvements. 

Now in its 32nd year, Day of Caring gives nonprofits additional help with projects that can improve their facilities and operations while allowing volunteers to directly support organizations serving the Centre County community. 

Any Centre County nonprofit organization, including businesses, civic groups or schools, to name a few, can submit projects for Day of Caring. The United Way reviews and approves the proposals before making the projects available for volunteers to select when registration opens in early September.

“Day of Caring is a powerful reminder of what can happen when people come together with a shared purpose,” CCUW executive director Megan Evans said. “Every project completed represents time, talent, and compassion invested directly into strengthening our community. We’re thrilled to welcome Kish Bank as our presenting partner and look forward to another incredible day of service.” 

Kish Bank is partnering with the United Way as the event’s presenting sponsor and is encouraging local residents and organizations to participate. 

“Community has always been at the heart of what we do,” Kish Bank president and CEO Greg Hayes said. “We’re honored to partner with Centre County United Way to help make Day of Caring 2026 another successful opportunity for neighbors to support neighbors.” 

Day of Caring is held annually in memory of its founder, the late Col. Gerald Russell. While serving on the CCUW board of directors, Russell pushed for ways to help local nonprofits beyond financial support. 

“His spirit and memory live on hopefully forever in this project,” Commissioner Steve Dershem said at a Board of Commissioners meeting last October. “He was an amazing man. He was very, very influential in the establishment of this project. I just want to once again recognize not only a military hero, but a local hero as well.”

Commissioner Amber Concepcion said last year during the board meeting that the event can also introduce volunteers to organizations they may want to support beyond the one-day event. 

“This is just such a great example of how our community can come together to help out organizations that do so much for our community in turn,” Concepcion said at the time. “And one of the things we’ve been emphasizing from the county level is the need for more volunteers to join all of these different nonprofits throughout the county because they really do rely on volunteer organizing. So hopefully some of the folks who come out for Day of Caring might find an organization that they’d be interested in volunteering with on a regular basis.”

Additional event information and volunteer forms are available through Centre County United Way.