MIAMI (WSVN) - The United Way of Miami-Dade is giving a helping hand to some families struggling to make ends meet during the coronavirus pandemic, and it is now accepting thousands more relief funding applications.
Nicole DiGrazia’s family is one among thousands grateful for the funds and support of the Miami-Dade Pandemic Assistance Program.
“The United Way pandemic assistance has been invaluable to my family,” she said. “It was critical. I’m not certain that we would still be comfortably housed right now if it wasn’t for the assistance from United Way.”
DiGrazia, a former veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has a form of autism, said she also has to care for three children with special needs.
“They consider me fully unemployable, totally and permanently disabled from my service,” she said.
When the pandemic hit, DiGrazia was struggling to make ends meet like many other families. She could not leave her home because she has an autoimmune disorder.
But thanks to federal funding distributed by the county, with help from the United Way of Miami-Dade, DiGrazia and 9,000 other families were given much-needed money for basic living expenses such as food, utilities and child care.
“These funds have been really critical for those families to help them bridge that gap and try to make it through as best they can,” said Vanessa Benavides, Associate Vice President of United Way of Miami-Dade.
United Way is currently accepting 4,000 new applications following a brief pause to ensure the first group of applicants received some of the $13.8 million distributed throughout the county.
“We’ve seen a lot of people in that position where they were doing OK, they were living paycheck to paycheck, and now this has happened, and [now] they have the financial reserves to be able to withstand that economic emergency,” said Benavides.
For families like DiGrazia’s, it could be the much-needed aid they so desperately hoped for.
“I was really starting to stress out, and even as a veteran, all the assistance that I am qualified for, United Way was really the one that was able to help and step up and just get us taken care of,” she said.
To learn more about the United Way of Miami-Dade and the Miami-Dade Pandemic Assistance Program, click here. To apply for the program, click here.
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