United Way of Eastern Idaho is a local non-profit committed to helping those experiencing financial hardship.
Based on the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), 10% of Idaho households live in poverty. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include 31% of the states working- poor who are not below the poverty line.
The 31% are represented by a metric called ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed households.
“We did a whole community assessment, and it came back that the greatest needs were, as you can probably imagine, accesses to mental health and health care in general, food insecurity for seniors and children, and affordable housing and a living wage,” said CEO of United Way of Eastern Idaho CEO Chris Wiersma.
In Madison County, that number goes up to 64% of households below the ALICE threshold. According to the latest state of ALICE report from 2025, in 2023, 3,238 households in Madison County were in poverty (25%) and 4,911 fell above the poverty line but still lie within the ALICE threshold (38%).
The report also states that when looking at the 20 most common jobs in Idaho, 15 of them paid less than $20/hour, which is roughly $40,000/year if working full time.
Idaho ranked 30th in financial hardship among all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
In the Idaho Falls warehouse, volunteers each week help pack meals, which Arial Howell, the Community Impact Manager, says are sent to local elementary through middle school students in need.
“The counselors and the principals identify students who need additional help on the weekends,” Howell said. "They don’t have access to the lunchroom on the weekends. So, there’s a lot of food insecurity happening. So weekly, we have these wonderful volunteers that pack kid-friendly, easy to make meals.”
Both Wiersma and Howell work hard striving to make a difference in the community with several different programs they direct.
“Even though we don’t have direct contact with the students, every clothing bag we send out, every food bag, every book, every STEM project, it leads to a story and building on what someone’s experiencing and where every little one has an impact,” Howell said.
With multiple programs that United Way of Eastern Idaho runs themselves, from clothing drives to STEM projects, they also partner with local nonprofit organizations, such as The Family Crisis Center located in Rexburg.
“Our goal is to really help lift those families with our programs,” Wiersma said. “Our why is ALICE.”
To support United Way of Eastern Idaho and see a full list of programs, head to their website.