United Way of Cullman County outgoing board chairman Albert von Pelser is seen during Wednesday’s luncheon.

The United Way of Cullman County was forced to slash funding for all its agencies in an effort to keep the non-profit solvent back in 2015. Less than two years later, the local United Way is back on track and fully funding all its agencies — with hopes to even increase allocations next year.

The cash on hand dipped to less than $67,000 in 2014, but fundraising has restored the coffers to approximately $200,000 at this point, which would allow United Way to fund its agencies for almost a full year if needed. Allocations have also increased from $177,500 in 2015 to just under $250,000 this year. The United Way has also added two new agencies.

“We went through some really tough years, but with (director) Sammie’s (Danford) efforts we’ve been able to increase allocations for this year to pretty much the level we were in 2013-2014,” outgoing board chairman Albert von Pelser, with REHAU, said. “We realized in 2014 that United Way was running out of funds, and we had to reduce funding to the agencies. We are here for the agencies, and that hurt the agencies, but it had to be done to keep United Way from going into bankruptcy. Now, even if the world falls apart tomorrow, we’ll be able to allocate this money to our agencies for almost a full fiscal year. That’s very important for the health of United Way.”

The top donors for United Way this year included Wal-mart Distribution/Transportation/Super Center with $54,442, Rusken Packaging with $24,055, TOPRE with $18,838, REHAU with $18,715, and the City of Cullman with $15,042.

“Several big companies, and the City of Cullman, really donated and helped this year,” von Pelser said. “We really appreciate them.”

Though fundraising increased dramatically, this year still fell short of the $425,000 fundraising goal, ending instead at $391,467.

“There’s always room for improvement, and these people are working relentlessly to hit that target,” von Pelser said.

Von Pelser also passed his gavel to Heath Taylor, with Rusken Packaging, who took over as the new chairman of the board.

“It’s been an exciting year at United Way, and I’ve been fortunate to serve with some great leaders these past few years,” he said. “I hope and pray I can continue to move United Way forward, but the bar has been set very high. I’m so appreciative of what these agencies can do, and how they do it with so little.”