Parents and local social service agencies are of one mind on one issue — finding affordable child care is darn tough in Douglas County.

You could take that statement a few steps further, too, a top official for the local United Way said Tuesday.

“We’re actually finding it is one of the key challenges we face as a country,” Angel Romero, vice president of resource development for the United Way of Kaw Valley, said.

With that, it made sense for the local United Way to make child care and early childhood success the major themes of this year’s fundraising campaign, Romero said.

“We are really excited to be focusing on the success of the whole family, and the family in all its forms,” Romero told the Journal-World.

The United Way of Kaw Valley on Tuesday evening announced that former state representative and Democratic gubernatorial and congressional nominee Paul Davis has been selected to serve as chair of the United Way’s annual fundraising drive.

The organization set a fundraising goal of $600,100 — $100 higher than last year’s goal — for this year’s campaign. The United Way campaign last year came within $12,000 of meeting its goal, and organizers this year feel good about hitting or exceeding the goal.

Davis and other leaders will have plenty to talk about in terms of how the money will be used. The United Way provides money to a host of social service agencies who then use the money to provide actual services. This year, there will be a special emphasis on providing funding to agencies that play a role with child care, but also several other key issues impacting families. Those include programs that focus on providing food and utility assistance to families.

“People have to have those basic needs covered before you really can get any further in life,” Romero said.

Romero said the decision to focus on child and family assistance as the overarching theme of the campaign was made after hearing lots of comments from social service providers.

“What our partner agencies are telling us is these are some the highest needs they are hearing about,” Romero said. “Ever since the pandemic, the need has skyrocketed, and it really hasn’t come down that much.”

Davis — a Lawrence attorney who was the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2014 and the party’s nominee for the 2nd Congressional District in 2018 — told the Journal-World that he’ll highlight how important United Way funding is for the day-in-day-out work of many local agencies.

“I have been involved with a number of agencies over the years that would not be able to do what they do for the community without support from the United Way,” Davis told the Journal-World. “It is critical to the mission of a lot of social service agencies in town who have really delivered for the community for decades.”

The annual fundraising campaign is a major source of revenue for local nonprofits, but Romero said the United Way plays a role that goes beyond a funding agency. He said the organization often seeks to bring nonprofits together to get them discussing ideas for collaboration and cooperation.

“We really want to look at how we can strengthen our entire nonprofit community,” he said.

That work is coming at the same time that the United Way of Kaw Valley is looking at how to strengthen its organization. The United Way of Kaw Valley was founded in August 2022 when the United Way of Douglas County merged with the United Way of Greater Topeka.

Both organizations had seen a trend of declining fundraising contributions and decided to merge administratively for financial and strategic reasons. The organization, however, continues to host a fundraising campaign that allows Douglas County donors to specifically contribute in ways that keep their dollars in Douglas County, rather than being shared throughout the larger Topeka region.

Romero said the United Way of Kaw Valley now is working on a new strategic plan to examine bigger-picture issues for the organization, now that it has successfully merged the staffs of the Douglas County and Shawnee County entities.

“Now we can start to dream what the organization really will look like,” Romero said.

People interested in giving to the United Way campaign can do so online at uwkawvalley.org/give.