When Meighan Sommer and her husband were moving into a new house before the birth of their first child, she listed a number of items online to give away. She was shocked by the number of heartbreaking messages she received, including someone who was interested in a pull-out couch so their children would have somewhere to sleep.
So Sommer spent her maternity leave — and then her next two — developing Give for Good, a safe and secure online giving platform that connects people who have good-quality items with those in need, and and a way for community agencies and individuals to post specific needs.
“I wanted to create a transparent giving network to smoothly match people’s generosity with genuine needs in our community,” Sommer says. “You can go to the platform and see what people need, and there’s no guesswork about where and how to donate.”
When someone suggested Give for Good would align with the work of United Way, Sommer reached out. Eventually it became an official United Way initiative, still led by Sommer and her army of volunteers and social workers, to leverage the organization’s ability to reach even more people.
“It feels so good to give and to help people,” Sommer says. “I think that through technology we can really transform goods into good deeds.”
This article appears in the Nov/Dec 2024 issue of Edify
