United Way’s 2025 Power of the Purse auction this past April raised a record $322,153 to fund subsidized child care for local parents pursuing their education!
Held at the Witte Museum, Power of the Purse is an annual purse auction hosted by Women United, a membership group powered by United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County. Purses sold at the auction included designer handbags from Kate Spade, Michael Kors, Chanel and more brands.
The funds raised at the event will be used to fund the United Way Child Care Scholarship, which provides free, subsidized child care to parents pursuing job training or higher education.
The event featured several speakers including child care scholarship recipients like Jeremy, a veteran and graduate of the United Way Child Care Scholarship program.
“There is a general that once said that an advised plan only survives first contact with the enemy… and that’s kind of how parenting is,” Jeremy said. “You have a plan and—boom—it’s gone. It was a lot of sleepless nights. It was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the childcare scholarship gave us capability in our life.”
Parents like Jeremy are often faced with the choice of working full time to support their new family or going back to school to pursue a brighter future. The high cost of child care, which costs an average of $11,024 per year for an infant in Texas, forces parents to chose survival over their education.
“The scholarship was transformational for our family,” Jeremy said to the audience at Power of the Purse. “Without people like you in this room, I wouldn’t be sitting up here today.”
On average, the United Way Child Care Scholarship pays for $14,000 in child care for scholarship recipients, with some families receiving as high as $30,000 for having multiple children in quality early child care centers.
To join Women United and help make a difference for families in San Antonio, please visit uwsatx.org. To apply for the United Way Child Care Scholarship, visit this link.
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Categories: Women United |
