Record-breaking 2025 United Way Campaign driven by University retirees and voluntary payroll deductions.
United Way Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington (KFL&A) is a local non-profit that raises and distributes funds to community issues through supporting and funding local partners and agencies. Queen’s supports United Way KFL&A through an annual campus campaign that engages staff, faculty, retirees, and students. The main fundraising season runs from September to the end of November. In 2025, Queen’s raised over $500,000, making it the highest campus campaign total to date.
In an interview with The Journal, United Way KFL&A CEO and President, John DiPaolo, thanked Queen’s for its work and emphasized the “incredibly important” campaign and partnership.
DiPaolo shared that the $500,000 makes up about 12 to 13 per cent of the total funds raised for the entire KFL&A region.
“It’s [Queen’s United Way campaign] actually the largest workplace campaign. If you go west of here [Kingston] to Oshawa and east all the way to Ottawa, this would be the largest workplace campaign in that region. So basically all of Eastern Ontario,” DiPaolo said.
Queen’s University United Way Committee—a committee led by volunteers to support and raise money for United Way KFL&A—Chair, James Ligthart, oversees campaign strategies, leads outreach and coordinates volunteers. In an interview with The Journal, he said this year’s success came down to the efforts of a committed team and a giving campus culture.
“I would think that it really comes down to the Queen’s community support through staff, faculty, and retiree donations,” Ligthart continued. “The retiree community is actually very active within the United Way campaign on campus. They drive pretty close to 50 per cent of our overall giving back to the community.”
Ligthart shared several ways Queen’s raises money for the campaign, attributing a large share of the success to the Queen’s retiree community and payroll deductions—where staff and faculty have the opportunity to auto-renew gifts and donate a percentage of their paycheque directly to the United Way campaign.
“They [retirees] drive pretty close to 50 per cent of our overall giving back to the community,” Ligthart said.
DiPaolo emphasized the importance of auto-renewal gifts through payroll deductions, noting that about 40 per cent of the $500,000 came from them.
Funds raised are distributed to a network of over 50 local agencies, with allocation decisions made by a panel of community volunteers.
“We have about 30 to 35 volunteers that come together every single year and go through all of the applications that we receive from the agencies to make sure that every dollar spent wisely and every last donation that we receive is actually invested back in our community in an effective and efficient manner,” DiPaolo explained.
One of the agencies United Way works with and helps fund is Kingston Community Health Centres, who delivers, funds and packages student food boxes for Queen’s students struggling with food insecurity.
“There’s a real food insecurity issue going on with students,” DiPaolo continued. “We want to make sure that students have the most healthy meals available to them.”
This year’s campaign surpassed Queen’s internal goal of $475,000, ending with more than $500,000.
Tags
Fundraiser, KFL&A Public Health, United Way
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.