The Portage Plains United Way got a boost this morning from Southport Aerospace, including a little more than planned due to news of the UW campaign falling a little short compared to this time last year. Southport CEO Peggy May says they're happy to help.

"We're very excited today that Southport was able to contribute $7,000 to the United Way Campaign. It's a compilation of 100% of our employees who contribute out of their paycheques every two weeks. And then Southport matches that. But we bumped it up just a little bit because we heard the plea. We heard they were a little behind, so we wanted to contribute a little bit more. And our donations have been growing steadily in the last three years. We're pretty happy about that."

United Way executive director Mandy Dubois acknowledges things became somewhat concerning for their 2016 campaign, but with continued support from Southport and other community members they hope to reach their goal of $247,500 dollars.

Dubois adds she's impressed with 100% of Southport's staff commitment in contributing donations from their biweekly paycheques.

"We have a lot of workplace campaigns that run throughout Portage," Dubois says. "But unfortunately this year we've seen a number of them from whom we used to see 100% participation from staff that kind of dwindled this year. We're still seeing really great results from the workplace, but we're just not seeing that 100% participation with a lot of corporations here in Portage and area. So, that's one thing we're going to have to focus on next year."