I read with interest your article on United Way cut backs to agencies, Oakville Beaver, April 30.

As a resident of Oakville and a social worker in a large public board of education, I would point out that our work as educators is seriously hampered without the support of multiple family and youth service agencies.

I marvel at the ingenuity, innovativeness and kindness of these small non-profit agencies as they balance precariously between survival and demise.

Our community needs vibrant community based social organizations. The question is how we move to support our non-profit agencies adequately and appropriately with much needed core funding rather than a sprinkling of projects funded around depleting organizations?

How do we assess our community's growing and changing social needs so that our agencies can better address them?

If the United Way of Oakville wishes to be part of making Oakville a livable community, they might reflect further on how they can better collaborate and support the social agencies.
They also might remember the words of Albert Einstein, very relevant to work with human beings, "that not everything that counts can be counted...to everything that can be counted counts."

If Oakville is determined to be the very best place to live, then all of its residents must have access to these crucial service agencies.

These are the services that sustain mental and physical health and well being throughout the entire life cycle. They are as necessary to community survival as water, heat and hospitals.
 
Penny Smith