Bob Levey's United Way

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2010-04-23T12:27:00.001-07:00

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Fun-fly-fit! Fun-fly-fit!

2010-04-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

Fun-fly-fit! Fun-fly-fit!

It wasn’t the kind of chant that you usually hear on a football field. But on a recent sunny Tuesday afternoon, 20 students at LaSalle Elementary School in Northeast Washington were beginning their twice-a-week effort to become healthier.

The chant was Step One.

The students were starting the second week of the six-week Fun Fly & Fit program, a signature effort of United Way of the National Capital Area to build youth fitness.

The children were all third, fourth or fifth graders. They all live in the nearby Michigan Park or Lamond Riggs neighborhoods. They were dressed as kids typically are—blue jeans, tank tops and T-shirts, sneakers of every conceivable color and shape.

But these were kids whose overall health is hampered by a lack of fitness. They had been recommended by LaSalle faculty, and they were being supervised by 12 volunteers from two national sororities.

The Fun Fly & Fit program is tightly organized. Children do calisthenics, relay races and stretching. They learn about healthy eating choices. And their parents get involved by attending evening meetings where tips about better diets are shared.

The LaSalle program is one of five currently underway around the Washington area.

Two elementary schools in Alexandria and one in Fairfax County are also taking part. So is Martha’s Table, a soup kitchen on Fourteenth Street, NW. Fun Fly & Fit was launched at two elementary schools in Loudoun County and Washington,DC last fall.

Jumping jacks began the day at LaSalle. Toe touches followed. Then the kids split into four teams for a relay race. Each child had to walk about 20 yards on top of two upside-down plastic cans, which the child held in place with strings. It was very easy to lose one’s balance, and many participants did. But that was fine with Shawntae Ray, age 12, “because it’s fun and you get exercise as you’re having fun.”
“It just teaches you how to do a lot of things,” added her friend, Raechon McCall, also 12.

Mia McCall, age 10, said she was an enthusiastic FFF participant because “it makes you lose weight.” How much did she hope and expect to lose? “A lot,” Mia replied.

The 45-minute session ended with a lesson about why fruits are a better diet choice than candy or ice cream. Then the group formed a circle and ended the way they had begun--with a chant.

Fun-fly-fit! Fun-fly-fit!

“See you Thursday,” said one of the volunteers. The kids nodded and smiled. Bodies and eating habits might take a while to change. But attitudes are already well on the way.

*For more information about bringing the Fun, Fly & Fit program to your community, please contact Euniesha Davis, 202.488.2024 or edavis@uwnca.org

*To sponsor a school or partner with UWNCA on this program, please contact Elizabeth Zacharias Owens at 202.488.2125 or eowens@uwnca.org

The World Went More Slowly

2010-04-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

Nancy Pelosi mailed her happy birthday wishes. So did Vice President Joseph Biden, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Mayor Adrian Fenty…. and a pair of Obamas, Barack and Michelle.

And, of course, Willard Scott.

“How does it feel to be 100?” asked Gertrude Lerch of Chevy Chase, who reached that milestone on March 11. “No different than any other time. I’m slower, I suppose.”
Slow has never described Gertrude Lerch, and it still doesn’t.

Although she uses a walker and doesn’t travel much any more, she still recalls 90-year-old details as if they happened yesterday. And after 73 years of living in Montgomery County, she is as committed to community service as ever.

About 40 years ago, Lerch served as volunteer president of the Health and Welfare Council, a forerunner agency to today’s United Way of the National Capital Area.
She had already served several years as the Girl Scouts’ representative to the Montgomery County Community Chest.

She has been a donor to United Way, or its ancestor agencies, for more than 70 years.

She is so dug into the local community that she has the same phone number she obtained in 1945, when she and her late husband reunited after his overseas service during World War Two.

“I’ve always wanted to volunteer,” said Lerch, who has three sons, eight grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and a six-month-old great-great-granddaughter. “I’m still a Girl Scout. I went to a meeting last night.

“And I’ve always liked giving to United Way. I’m still a donor, but not anywhere near what I was. I still think it’s a good way to go.”

Bobby Lerch was born in California, to a chemical engineer and a wife who traveled for three weeks from her native Germany to join him in the United States. The family lived in Wyoming, then for most of Bobby’s childhood in Ardsley, N.Y. She and her husband, Hank, met and married in the 1930s. He died in the early 1980s.

Lerch studied at Mount Holyoke College to be a chemist, but gave up her career to raise a family. When she first volunteered for the Montgomery County Community Chest, the upcounty area was totally rural.

“They had outhouses,” said Lerch, with an incredulous shake of the head.
She said she misses those days.

“The world went more slowly,” she said. “We didn’t have everything, or expect to have everything.”

Lerch celebrated her centennial with a luncheon at Columbia Country Club, just down the street from her apartment. All her living relatives except one were there—88 people in all. There were speeches, hugs, tributes from the Girl Scouts and her church, tears, kisses.

“It just happens to be good genes,” Lerch said that day—and repeated to me in her living room. “That’s a lot of it.”

But there’s also the spirit that says one can always do more.

Lerch came home from her 100th birthday party, rested a while—and then began to catch up on the reading she’s expected to do as a trustee of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Northwest Washington.

“It’s amazing how much has changed in my lifetime,” said Bobby Lerch. But some things have barely changed at all.

There’s Always More We Can Do

2010-03-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

He bounces around the treatment room like any two-year-old boy in blue jeans. He’s fascinated by a pinball game. He loves a set of colored cards. He smiles. He claps his hands.

But when therapist Mae Carlson asks the boy to repeat simple sounds after her, the plot changes abruptly.
“Boo,” says Mae.
“Boo,” replies the boy, brightly.
“Bee,” says Mae.
“Boo,” replies the boy, a little less brightly.
“Bye,” says Mae.

The boy says nothing. His brain won’t let him.
He has been diagnosed with autism, and he can’t always coordinate his muscles, lips and tongue to mimic or produce sounds.

As recently as two decades ago, this boy might have been institutionalized. But on a warm Wednesday morning in March, he is being treated at one of the Washington area’s largest and most successful non-profit hearing and speech clinics, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing.

BRSH is located in an office park in Lansdowne, Virginia, about 20 miles northwest of Dulles International Airport. It has served the burgeoning population of Loudoun County since 1964.

In the fiscal year that ended last June 30, BRSH provided audiology, speech and occupational therapy services to 1,172 people. The agency also conducts screenings in Loudoun County pre-schools once a week to identify children at risk.

“We see a lot of kids with special needs, kids on the autism spectrum,” said Kristi Stilen-Lare, the president and CEO. The agency also operates loaner banks for hearing equipment. It prides itself on providing services to people and families who can’t pay.

BRSH is a longtime partner of United Way of the National Capital Area. United Way donations support the agency’s everyone-gets-served policy. BRSH received $3,864.49 in United Way support in the last fiscal year.

“A lot of working families can’t afford our services,” said Stilen-Lare. “Or insurance plans put caps on how many visits someone can have. United Way funds give us the flexibility” to treat patients who wouldn’t otherwise be treated, she said.

At BRSH, miracles seldom happen. But slow and steady progress often does.One patient, an 18-year-old boy who suffered a traumatic brain injury, has been in treatment at BRSH for more than six years. As recently as four months ago, he couldn’t dress himself. But recently, he came within a whisker of being able to put on his own pants. “It’s real progress,” said his therapist, Kristin Palen.

Another patient, a three-year-old boy, couldn’t respond to questions or commands unless they were sung. He suffers from a condition called apraxia, an inability to process verbal commands.

But after nearly a year of therapy with pathologist Trinity E. Costic, the boy “can express himself in multiple sentences” and “he doesn’t need music all the time” to understand and obey commands, Costic said.

“Literally, from week to week, you’re seeing progress,” Costic said.
If BRSH had more support from United Way? Stilen-Lare said she’d convert part-time positions to full-time and do more pre-school screening.

“There’s always more we can do,” she said.

Another Cat Has Become More Like a Lion...

2010-03-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Emily Breines, the teacher, has projected a slide onto the wall of a classroom in the downtown YWCA. It’s easy to see a cat in the foreground. The cat is looking in a mirror.
But what’s being reflected back?

Edwin Andrade, one of the students, raises his hand.
“A lion,” he says. And he smiles a smile of recognition.

Turning cats into lions is, in a nutshell, what a program called Beyond Talent tries to accomplish. It works with young Washingtonians—typically between 18 and 30—to help them hone their skills and self-confidence so they are ready for college. It is in the backbone construction and reconstruction business.

The program is in its seventh year. It has taught about 350 students in that time, about 100of them in 2009.

Most of the students left traditional high schools at some point. Some have gotten GED diplomas, but many have not. All are united in their desire to learn more in two-year or four-year colleges, so they can earn more. But many—if not most—lack the belief that they can achieve very much in the academic arena.

Edwin Andrade, 19, is an excellent example. He dropped out of Northwestern High School in Hyattsville three years ago.

“I didn’t like it,” he said. “It just wasn’t fun. For a while, I didn’t do nothing. I was in the streets and stuff.”

A succession of low-paying, no-future jobs followed. His current one pays him $8 an hour to clean office buildings.

“I want to go to college,” Andrade said. “Then I want to get into business. I’ve always wanted to do that.” Beyond Talent is “doing good” at helping him get there.
Ellie Phillips, the founder and executive director of Beyond Talent, said that “no other organization is really focusing on this population. Very often, they don’t think beyond the immediacy of get a paycheck, get through the day.” That’s why Beyond Talent drills them not just on academic fundamentals, but on attitudes—self-confidence, self-awareness, assertiveness, alertness.

About five percent of Beyond Talent’s $75,000 annual budget comes from donors to United Way of the National Capital Area. Ellie Phillips is very enthusiastic about the partnership because it didn’t exist before 2009.

“New sources of funds are what we always need, and United Way is one of those sources,” she said. At the front of the room, Emily Breines has projected a new slide. The word “self-confidence” is right in the center.

“If you’re self-confident, what does it mean?” she asks. Edwin Andrade raises his hand.
“It means you take more chances on stuff. Like those reasonable risks we were talking about,” he says.

Emily Breines smiles and nods. Yet another cat has become more like a lion.

It’s Something You Feel Good About

2010-02-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

Heidi Nel has been a Washingtonian for only five weeks. She is still learning her way around the subway, the Safeway and the snow drifts.

But as of last Wednesday night, she is learning about another local institution—United Way of the National Capital Area.

Elise Shutzer, a colleague of hers at a political consulting firm, invited Heidi to attend a Young Leaders social hour at Marvin, a club near U Street. Heidi was not only impressed with the turnout (standing-room only after 45 minutes), but with what UWNCA does.

“I’ve heard of United Way before,” said Heidi, who is 28. “But in all honesty, I was not aware of all the initiatives,” it operates. She’s aware now.

United Way staff mingled with Young Leaders and their invited guests, to explain the organization and its purpose. Volunteer sign-up sheets and fundraising pledge sheets were circulated. Meanwhile, monogrammed lanyards and literature were available on nearby tabletops, for the crowd to take home.

Heidi said she was hooked, and she intends to remain hooked. “I think our generation is into making a difference,” she said. “This is obviously a good way to do it.”

Elise Shutzer discovered United Way when she worked for the same consulting firm in Boston. She served on the Young Leaders leadership team there. “So when I moved here (nine months ago), it was obvious for me to continue that connection,” she said.

Elise was heavily involved with children’s initiatives while she lived in Boston. In Washington, her interest has shifted to housing. But United Way can accommodate either or both.

“When I talk to people about United Way, they know the brand, but they don’t really know what United Ways do,” said Elise, who’s 29. “They all do so much good in so many ways. And they find ways every day to see if what they’re doing is working.”

Elise is not only active in United Way herself. She is a recruiter. And she recently landed a recruit she has known all his life—her younger brother, Aaron.

“He called me and said it was time to get involved in something,” Elise said. “And here he is.”

Aaron was busily chatting with a cluster of young people on the other side of the room. He looked like a United Way veteran, even though he had been at the Young Leaders event for only a few minutes.

“We really needed him,” said Elise. “He’s in finance. We need money!”
“I love this. I really do,” she said. “It’s something you feel good about.”

"WE CARE"

2010-02-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

The warehouse holds 15,000 cubic feet and takes up most of a city block. It’s full of furniture for Native Americans, bedding for Africans, the occasional battered refrigerator door.

Right in the middle is a floor-to-ceiling shelf full of cardboard boxes. The outside of each box reads: BANDAGES. It might as well read: WE CARE.

Working with United Way of the National Capital Area, Christian Relief Services of Northern Virginia has spent the last two weeks collecting donations for beleaguered earthquake victims in Haiti.

UWNCA has spread the word to its agencies and supporters that medical supplies are urgently needed in Haiti. Christian Relief Services has agreed to collect donations and store them at its warehouse in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

At the end of February, CRS will load everything it has collected into an 18-wheeler owned by Interstate Van Lines. The truck will take the goods to a port in South Florida. From there, they will be shipped to a children’s hospital and orphanage in Haiti.

CRS normally supports Indian reservations in South Dakota and communities in the Third World. But the Haiti shelf is a source of special pride to Dave Frank, the superintendent of the CRS warehouse.

“The need is obvious,” he said one recent afternoon, as we toured the facility. “It’s nice to be part of the solution.”

Donors from all over the Washington area have contributed dozens of wheelchairs, crutches, bandages, medicine kits, personal hygiene kits, casting materials and medical implements, Frank said. All donors have been thanked, but Frank asked me to do so again.

“If people say thank you, it really makes a big difference,” he said.
By the end of the month, Frank said he expects to have collected between 30,000 and 40,000 pounds of medical supplies for Haitians. He saluted United Way for spearheading the drive.

“They’ve been very communicative, and no games,” he said. “They’re not worrying about who gets the God points.”

Frank asked donors not to contribute food or clothing, and he asked donors not to bring goods to his Fredericksburg warehouse.

Instead, donors should contact Monika Taylor of the United Way staff at mtaylor@uwnca.org or 202-488-2000. She will supply you with a collection box and a list of needed items. The drive ends Feb. 28.

Homelessness—It Lives In Your Neighborhood

2010-02-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

A plain cinder-block building sits on an Alexandria street corner, across the street from a McDonald’s and beside an auto repair shop. The sign by the door says it’s Carpenter’s Shelter. But Executive Director Fran Becker has a punchier name for it.

She calls it the first chance and the last chance.
Carpenter’s Shelter is a 22-year-old center for Alexandria’s homeless. In 2009, Carpenter’s took in about 1,000 homeless people, the vast majority of them residents of Alexandria.

But Carpenter’s isn’t just somewhere to sleep. It’s a place where the homeless are coached, wheedled and helped not to be homeless any more.

Carpenter’s can house as many as 80 people on any one night. But it will not offer a bed for more than three nights to anyone who doesn’t agree to take financial literacy training, undergo health screening and look for a job.

“Our core values, they’ve never changed,” says Becker. “Our mission is to end and prevent homelessness.”

United Way funds have underwritten that effort from the beginning. Carpenter’s Shelter receives about 1.5 percent of its $1.6 million annual budget from United Way grants or workplace donors.

“We’re very conscious of any workplace giving we get,” says Becker, who has run Carpenter’s for the last 12 years. “We put it right to work in our programming.”

The population at Carpenter’s runs the gamut from men to women, from families to singles, from longtime Alexandrians to people who’ve just blown into town on the bus. On a recent Thursday afternoon, three men in work boots were eating lunch in the brightly lit Carpenter’s lunch room. But so were a mother and her infant daughter.

Residents can live at Carpenter’s indefinitely, as long as they “buy into what we demand,” says Becker.

“For the first time, we’re in their face,” she says. “We insist that they accept the idea that they’re responsible for their own life.” If they won’t look for a job or attend education classes, “we tell them, ‘Sorry, this isn’t the place for you.’ ”
Carpenter’s is rare among Washington-area homeless programs in the way it remains available to its alumni.

More than 400 former residents are enrolled in “after care.” That means that even after they’ve moved on and out, they can call Carpenter’s for a booster shot of confidence, counseling and (in some circumstances) cash.

“We continue to support the life skills that will mean they never come back here,” says Becker.
Like every community-based nonprofit, Carpenter’s could use much more United Way money. If it came, “we’d partner for more education or job training,” says Becker.

In the meantime, Carpenter’s logs more than $500,000 a year in volunteer labor and donations. The agency is about to finish a second consecutive year of deliberately spending beyond its budget. “The need is that great,” says Jasmin Witcher, director of development and strategic alliances.

“What we try to instill here is the responsibility,” says Becker. “It’s you. It’s no one else.”

And it’s a problem that ranges far beyond any one Alexandria neighborhood. The sign on the wall of the Carpenter’s executive offices makes the point quite crisply:
“Homelessness—It Lives In Your Neighborhood,” the sign says. Carpenter’s aims to change that—and keep it changed.

What United Way of the National Capital Area Means to Me

2010-01-27T08:22:00.000-08:00

The full name is “United Way of the National Capital Area.”

Most people focus on the first two words. I like to focus on the final three.

To me, the genius of UWNCA is the way it jumps borders. Our metropolitan area is hammered together—two states, one major city, several smaller ones, several counties. Sometimes, the various pieces don’t look much like one another, and all too often, they don’t communicate very well with one another.

But the social problems of our area spread across the entire length and breadth of it. If we want to stamp out child obesity, for example, we’d be foolish to try to do it only in the District of Columbia. UWNCA provides the platform--and the expertise—to carry the fight to every jurisdiction and every child.

By giving to United Way each year, I’m saying: “I don’t want to aim small. I want to aim at real solutions to real problems. I don’t want to pretend that problems end at borders or at the banks of a river. They spill across them. So my money has to do the same.”

UWNCA is the only local organization that approaches social change in this way. It does so effectively. It does so imaginatively. And it has done so for more than 35 years in its current form.

I can and do give to smaller, more targeted organizations. But I will always give to UWNCA because it goes 360 degrees.

The issues in our community do, too.

The Need is Still Unmet

2010-01-12T13:38:00.000-08:00

At 53, Paul Little has been through many Schools of Hard Knocks.

He dropped out of the eighth grade to help support his mother and six younger siblings. He sold drugs on street corners. He worked construction. He went to prison. He’s now unemployed and living in a shelter for recovering addicts and alcoholics.

And he’s back in school.

One recent morning, Little and 16 other students were wrestling with a math problem:
Janet owes $1,800. She agrees to pay $300 on the first of the month and $150 on the first of each succeeding month. How many months will it take her to pay off the loan?
Little tinkered with a pencil as instructor Johann Ducharme roamed the classroom, helping where help was needed.

Little built a few fractions. He did some subtraction. Triumphantly, he wrote down the figure “11” and circled it.

He smiled.

The scene was the downtown Washington headquarters of Catholic Charities, one of the oldest social services organizations in the metropolitan area. The GED Prep class that Paul Little is taking is one of dozens of programs that Catholic Charities has run in the community for more than 80 years.

Donors to United Way of the National Capital Area supply about eight percent of Catholic Charities’ annual budget, or about $375,000 during the current fiscal year, according to President and CEO Ed Orzechowski.

“United Way is an extremely important relationship for us,” Orzechowski said. The need for support from United Way donors (and other donors) has never been greater, according to Orzechowski and Carol Shannon, Executive Director of the Catholic Charities Foundation. “We are serving what I call The New Poor,” said Orzechowski.

These are people who have never needed or sought help before.

“All of a sudden, they’ve lost their home,” Orzechowski said. “Then a spiraling effect starts to happen. The crush of need is so high. We don’t have the staff to handle it.”

Orzechowski and his organization often talk about The Cry Factor. First-time visitors to Catholic Charities’ eight family centers often weep when they first seek help. “They’re embarrassed,” said Shannon. “Their families are truly suffering.”

Catholic Charities has seen a 36 percent increase in applications for help since the recession started to surge, Orzechowski said. The organization serves people from 80 countries, offering everything from emergency food, to loans that will keep utilities from being cut off, to bankruptcy advice from a squadron of attorneys (many of them volunteers).

The results are not perfect. Johann Ducharme, the GED instructor, estimates that no more than one-third of his students will pass the GED exam. “That’s a discouragement,” Ducharme admits. But one-third is better than none.

For Paul Little, GED training is a lifeline he knows he should have grabbed decades earlier. “Any job you try to get these days, you need a GED,” he said. “You want to work at McDonalds, the first thing they ask you is, ‘Do you have a GED?’“

If Catholic Charities ever got a surge of donations from United Way? “We’d hire the staff we need,” said Ed Orzechowski. “The need is still huge. The need is still unmet."

He’s a Feisty Little Guy—Two Years Old and Full of Steam

2010-01-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

He’s a feisty little guy—two years old and full of steam. He smiles. He waves. He wants to show you the book he’s carrying. His T-shirt says it all. BIG TROUBLE IN A LITTLE SHIRT, the front of it says.

But the bigger trouble happened to his mother. She was a teenager when Big Trouble was conceived. Perhaps because of abuse, perhaps because of neglect, she was referred to St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home in Hyattsville. There, she got appropriate pre-natal care and had a safe place to live before and after Big Trouble was born.

Teenage pregnancies have always been a major social problem, but no agency anywhere has done as much to ease the situation—for both mother and child—as St. Ann’s.
The home celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2010. It was chartered by no less than Abraham Lincoln, in 1863. It offers about 20,000 days of care each year across four programs—children’s residential, teen mothers and babies, community child care and a transitional home for older single mothers who are working toward self-sufficiency.

United Way of the National Capital Area has been a partner of St. Ann’s for decades. Although UWNCA donors provide only about six percent of St. Ann’s annual non-foundation charity dollars, United Way support is “critical,” said Sister Mary Bader, St. Ann’s CEO.

Indeed, 100 yards before you arrive at St. Ann’s front door, you see a familiar red and white sign that says, UNITED WAY—WORKING HERE.
“There’s always a gap,” said Lisa Sheehan, St. Ann’s director of development. “United Way helps us make it up.”

Once upon a time, Sister Mary said, teenage pregnancy was treated in only one way—by quarantining the mother and unborn child and semi-pretending that the pregnancy never happened.

In today’s Washington area, she said, “all of our teenage Moms are victims of poverty.” That can cause families to spiral into drug and alcohol abuse—which increases the likelihood that young girls will lack supervision and self-esteem and become sexually active. Once pregnant, these teenagers often leave school—and only later discover how difficult it is to get a job without an education.

As a result, St. Ann’s runs—and has always run—a full-service high school. While their children are attending day care elsewhere at St. Ann’s, teenage mothers and mothers-to-be are cracking the books. On one recent morning, a music teacher was showing a teenage mother how to navigate the Internet in search of a job. A math teacher was planning lessons. In an English class down the hall, one young mother was reading aloud from a novel.

If United Way donors gave more money, Sister Mary said she’d probably spend it on “unfunded pregnant girls who aren’t referred here through county or city agencies.” She hears from such mothers-to-be “every single day,” Sister Mary said. It’s a testament to how long St. Ann’s has helped such young people, and how well.

It Can Be a Heart-wrenching Process..

2009-12-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

Patsy extends her hand. I take it, shake it and say nice to meet you. But she’s already halfway down the brightly lit hall, to where photos line the walls.

Photos of soldiers serving in World War Two. Photos of young girls in flowing prom dresses. And a photo of Patsy as a carefully coiffed, smiling young woman.

“I was Miss North Carolina,” Patsy says. What she doesn’t say is that she recalls those days more clearly than she recalls yesterday. She makes this trip down Memory Lane regularly because, some 50 years after the Miss North Carolina photo was shot, Patsy suffers from dementia.

Patsy is one of 34 patients who spend full weekdays at Alzheimer’s Family Day Center, a $1.2 million-per-year operation located in an office building in Fairfax. At AFDC, patients eat, play, make Christmas ornaments, pass time with each other. All have a fatal illness, but you wouldn’t know it from Patsy’s enthusiasm or the smiles of her fellow late-stage Alzheimer’s patients.

“These people are dying a little bit every day,” explained Nancy Dezan, executive director of AFDC. “But these people have fun. We dance, we sing. They have a very high quality of life.”

AFDC is a longtime partner of United Way of the National Capital Area. During the current calendar year, donors across the Washington area will have given the agency about $44,000. Slightly more than $21,000 will have gone for general operations. The remainder will have gone for physical therapy.

AFDC not only serves as a place for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients to spend the day. It also trains and supports family members, many of whom are dazed by the changes that the diseases cause in their loved ones.

One of the hardest changes for family members to handle, Nancy Dezan said, is the tendency of Alzheimer’s patients to live farther and farther in the past, as Patsy does.

It can be a heart-wrenching process. One elderly woman at AFDC mistakes her husband for her father, because she thinks she’s 14 years old. Another patient has forgotten the names of her children. Still another used to be a physician. Now she sits at a table, staring into space, with a half-smile on her lips.

“I have people here who are at a functioning level of a six-month-old,” Nancy Dezan said. Yet the average age of her patients is at least 65. Although AFDC charges each patient $75 a day, those funds don’t come close to covering the agency’s costs.

If she had additional funds from United Way donors, Nancy Dezan said she’d “try to do more for families,” especially where the patient is strapped for funds, or penniless. In 2006, she said, she budgeted $30,000 to subsidize people who couldn’t afford AFDC’s services. In this calendar year, that figure will have swollen to $190,000.

AFDC would also like to move to a larger space, and do more training for family members who support Alzheimer’s patients. United Way funds would support expanded efforts in both of those areas, Dezan said.

Patsy is back at a table now. She and 11 other patients are coloring Christmas decorations. It’s obvious that all of them are suffering from what Nancy Dezan calls “gentle confusion.” But they are safe, they are dry and they are eating bagels cut into eighths.

“If they stayed at home all day and stared at the walls, they’d go downhill very quickly,” Nancy Dezan says. Thanks in part to United Way donors, they don’t have to do that.

So Begins Another Busy Day...

2009-12-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

They're a family of trucks--a tractor-trailer in the first loading dock, a box truck in the second, a van in the third. The first vehicle is delivering food. The other two are picking it up. Three more trucks are waiting in the alley.

Meanwhile, on the warehouse floor, forklifts zoom around and volunteers stack cans of peas. And out front, a hungry man loiters and lingers, hoping for food.

So begins another busy day at the Washington area's largest food dispensary, the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB).

United Way of the National Capital Area has supported CAFB since it opened nearly 30 years ago. But the need in late 2009 is greater than ever, according to CEO Lynn Brantley.

"I'm worried," she said, in an interview in her office last Friday. "How are we going to meet our ongoing need? People are losing jobs. Our agencies are seeing a 30-to-200 percent increase [in demand for food]. I've never seen a time like this."

According to Brantley, the surge in demand comes from people who have never sought free food before. "We're hearing from attorneys who say, 'I lost my job. I used to contribute to you. Where do I go for help?'," she said. The Food Bank expects to have distributed 25 million pounds of food by the time 2009 ends. That's the largest one-year total in CAFB's history.

CAFB does not hand out food at its headquarters on Taylor Street NE. It collects food from donors and distributes it to more than 700 nonprofit partner agencies around the metropolitan area. More than 380,000 people will have been fed by a CAFB partner agency in 2009, including more than 2,000 children a day.

CAFB is no longer a mini-storefront operation. Its budget for the current fiscal year is $10.8 million. It employs more than 80 people at its warehouse. It expects to move to a new headquarters on Puerto Rico Avenue NE in 2010, which will increase both its budget and its number of employees.

United Way donors contributed $30,900 to CAFB in the last full fiscal year. That's a relatively small sum. Yet each dollar contributed to CAFB buys three meals for one person, Lynn Brantley said. "Every dollar makes a big difference," she said.
The first thing a visitor sees on CAFB's front door is a sticker that reads: UNITED WAY.

"I've always been a proponent of United Way," said Lynn Brantley. "We as a community have to pull together, and United Way is a critical way to do that."

The Need is Greater Than Ever....

2009-12-16T10:42:00.000-08:00

Alexandria has always had a way of pulling the wool over the eyes of visitors.

In Old Town, pricey shops and restaurants offer the best from around the world. On nearby side streets, quaint 300-year-old homes routinely sell for more than $1 million.

A smash hit movie starring Denzel Washington was made about the local high school’s state champion football team. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford once lived in Alexandria. George Washington once worshipped there.

So is Alexandria heaven on earth? Not by a long shot.

More than 1,500 Alexandria families have incomes below the federal poverty level. More than 5,600 Alexandria families are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. At Carpenter’s Shelter, the largest homeless support agency in Alexandria, the staff has seen more than 1,000 homeless children and adults so far this year—nearly one percent of Alexandria’s population.

But in Alexandria, United Way has been meeting these challenges, and others like it, for 64 years. On Dec. 11, leaders of the Alexandria Regional Council of United Way kicked off this year’s fundraising drive.

It’s an ambitious one. The goal, as announced by chair Carla Fleming, is $1 million. But history is on Alexandria’s side. “United Way is what you can always depend on,” Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille told a crowd of more than 50 at the kickoff event. “It’s always there.” He urged the audience to “give till it hurts. Help people help themselves.”

Perhaps because of its relatively small size, Alexandria has done an especially good job of raising and spending money via a Community Impact Fund. The council, and seven others like it around the Washington area, steer undesignated dollars toward larger community problems that no single agency can resolve. Last year, Alexandria donors gave $158,000 to Community Impact programs.

Because of Community Impact, “United Way is more than just a way to collect dollars,” said James Hoben, co-chair of a local non-profit called Housing Action. United Way money “helps us try to identify problems and coordinate solutions better.”
“People are much more engaged” in a city of only 140,000 or so, which means that “Community Impact funds are more carefully spent,” said Jasmin Witcher, Director of Development and Strategic Alliances at Carpenter’s Shelter. Other city leaders said that more than 100 Alexandria organizations benefit from United Way via the Community Impact program.

Forms were passed out. Checks were written. Year 65 of United Way in Alexandria was underway even before the leftover vegetables were wrapped in plastic.

“The need is greater than ever,” said Jasmin Witcher. “I hope the response is, too.”

My Mailbox is Groaning. It's the Usual Suspects...

2009-12-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

My mailbox is groaning. It’s the usual suspects--year-end appeals.
Some of them plead. Some cajole. Others yank me with photographs of sick children. Still others remind me that I gave a year ago, and surely I will want to give again, won’t I?

I make three stacks—a yes stack, a no stack, and an I’ll-decide-in-a-week stack. But first—always first—I start by writing a check to United Way of the National Capital Area.

The reason is not just habit and tradition, but suppleness and effectiveness.UWNCA does not aim my gift at just one agency—unless I tell it to. It does not aim my money at just one issue—unless I tell it to.

United Way will always honor my wishes. But it will also use my money wisely and well when I check a box—as I always do—that says, “Please use my gift in the most effective possible way.”

This is my way of recognizing that needs change in our community, sometimes very quickly. The last year is an excellent case in point.

Last December, most gifts in our community went to religious groups, higher education and hospitals, as they usually do. There’s nothing wrong with any of those causes, and there never will be.

But the recession was just beginning to develop into a Category Five storm. Some of us didn’t believe it would be as bad as it turned out to be. Others didn’t anticipate how steeply our needs for food and shelter would increase.

Now, a year later, we’ve seen reality. I’m delighted that my end-of-year gift in 2008went to provide meals and emergency housing. But my gift couldn’t have done that if I had restricted it to one agency or one geographic area.

United Way gives me the pathway to aim dollars at big, real problems. I can designate one agency, or I can designate one problem via the UWNCA Community Impact program. This gives me, the donor, the control I want. But it also gives me the flexibility that I know the community needs.

If you’re sitting on the fence about making a gift to United Way this year, I hope you’ll climb off it and write a generous check. You can rest assured that your money will go wherever you specify. But if you don’t specify, it will go toward the greatest community needs.

Sound good? It does to me, too.

29 days to go...

2009-12-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

December is make-or-break time at every charity on earth. It’s no different at United Way of the National Capital Area.

The major holidays that fall in this month are all about good will and good tidings. If you care about those humans around you who are less fortunate—often through no fault of their own—a gift in December is very much in order. A gift to UWNCA would be especially useful and very much appreciated.

There’s also the wonder of a tax deduction (if you itemize deductions). Cynics love to say that this—and only this—motivates charitable giving. Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags are coming to the end of yet another tax year, and they discover that they may owe the government more than they would like. So, panicky, they give at the end of the year to dodge the tax man.

I try not to be quite so cynical. I give each December for another reason: To try to make next year better than the one that’s about to end.

Money isn’t the only way to do that, of course. But after the harrowing events of 2009, every drop of charity carries additional weight.

More of us are hurting in the Washington area than I could ever have imagined. To help out with the basics—food, shelter, health care—is a clear responsibility this year. But so is the avenue by which a giver gives.

I’m about to write my 43rd consecutive check to the local United Way. I give because I care. But I give via UWNCA because I’m as persuaded as I was in 1967 that this organization gets my money closest to what hurts, and closest to the agencies that can do something about that hurt.

My name isn’t Pollyanna, and I don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy. Nor do I think that my modest gift, by itself, can undo the recession or bring someone’s house back from foreclosure. But I do believe—very firmly—that everyone can and should do what they can. If that happens, we’ll never need millionaires, because we’ll already have many millions. Not to mention the kind of caring, supportive community we all want.

So…29 days to go in this final month of 2009. Let’s make it one to remember, for givers and getters alike.

Help Where It's Needed Most

2009-11-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

It was 12:07 p.m., and the line was forming already. A woman with a small child in tow. A man in scuffed work boots and a leather jacket. Two women with gray hair and wrinkles. Two more with neither.

Action and Community Through Service (ACTS) doesn’t open its food pantry until 1 p.m. on Tuesdays. But that didn’t stop the needy of eastern Prince William County from lining up early outside the “food building” just off U.S. Rte. 1 in Dumfries.

If they lined up late, explained Frances Harris, the executive director, they might miss out on the best items—or miss out altogether.

ACTS has been partially funded for many years via United Way of the National Capital Area. Distributing free food to the needy has long been one of its cornerstone programs. But in 2009, the need for the program has intensified.

“Seven years ago, we’d see 30-40 households a day,” said Harris, a former Marine Corps captain who has run ACTS for nearly two years. “In the last three weeks, it has been 100 households a day.”

Who are these additional people? “People who had been making a pretty decent living,” Harris said. But they may have lost a job recently, or had a house foreclosed, or both.

“We’re starting to see real estate agents who haven’t sold a house in two years,” explained Chris Caseman, a relationship manager for UWNCA and a Prince William County resident for three decades. ACTS still serves what Harris calls its “chronically low-income population.” But now some of the people in line are first-timers. Uncomfortable first-timers.

“They are embarrassed. Yes, they are,” she said. Some don’t want to stand in line outside the food pantry “because they don’t think they’re one of them.”

Yet it’s all one community in the lobby of the ACTS food pantry. The great majority of people who seek services of any kind there are locals—often longtime locals. And the food comes from locals, too.

“In the summer, we get donations of fresh fruits and vegetables from the farmers’ market,” Harris said. “Groceries, schools, churches, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, they’re all involved” in running food drives throughout the year, she said.

But a key piece of the puzzle is dollars. And in that department, United Way of the National Capital Area is a significant player. ACTS’ budget is approximately $2.5 million this year. UWNCA donors supply about eight percent of that total. If that sum disappeared, “We simply couldn’t do everything we need to do,” Harris said.

“This community really doesn’t want this community to go hungry,” Harris said. As a result, she doesn’t expect UWNCA funding to dwindle or die. But she could always use more, especially since there’s no obvious end to the increased need. “We’re pretty even with the demand,” she said. She’d like to stay there. UWNCA can help that happen. It has the track record. It brings help where it’s needed most.

A Lifetime of Giving

2009-11-25T10:25:00.000-08:00

She likes to call it “our United Way.” But she could very well call it hers.

Frida Burling is 94 years old. She has been a donor to—and a champion of—United Way of the National Capital Area for 74 consecutive years. No one in the Washington area comes close, either in consistent giving or passion for the cause.

Seventy-four years……. That’s 11 presidents, four major wars, three Washington baseball teams, two husbands, three children, 47 living descendants. Yet for Frida Burling, United Way has been a constant.

“It’s not only a duty, it’s a pleasure,” she told me, over tea and cookies in the living room of her Georgetown home one afternoon this week. “It’s an honor to help people who need it.”

Frida Burling ascribes her philanthropic spirit to a bumpy—and occasionally poverty-stricken—childhood.

Her parents split up when she was a girl, and her mother had to seek shelter from Frida’s grandparents, who lived in Washington. It was not a hand-to-mouth existence, but it wasn’t close to luxurious.

“Having grown up realizing how bad it can be, I can empathize with” Washington’s poor, she said. “I can ache for hungry children.”

Frida had her debut at 18, and joined the Junior League (an upper-crust women’s group) at 20. Through Junior League, she raised her first funds for a forerunner of United Way. “It’s what you did,” she explained.

Through both of her marriages, raising money—and donating it—became a way of life. “I worked at selling real estate when I was married to my first husband, but my heart was in helping the community,” Frida said. She has never stopped doing it, across nearly three-quarters of a century.

Her second husband, Edward Burling Jr., was a founding partner of one of the city’s oldest and best-known law firms, Covington and Burling. When they married in 1959, “I realized that I didn’t have to sell real estate any more,” Frida said, with a wink.

“Eddie loved horses. I didn’t care about either end of a horse.” Instead, Frida worked tirelessly as a board member and fundraiser for several Washington non-profits, all of which serve children and families. Meanwhile, she gave and gave and gave to United Way.
Frida says it won’t end until she does.

“Anything I can do, I would be glad to do,” she said. “Anything.”

Always Remembering the Human Dimension

2009-11-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

Success in business doesn’t just fall out of a tree and hit you.

It’s built wide and deep. It depends on knowledge of the marketplace, but also on attention to detail. Most of all, it depends on identifying—and always remembering—the human dimension. It won’t work as a business unless it hits people in the right way, and gets them to open their wallets.

Abe Pollin lived these principles throughout his 60-plus years as a businessman in Washington. But he also lived them as a philanthropist.

He never made shallow, quickie, one-time donations. His were wide, deep and strategic. His always identified the human dimension. His always built a broad base, not just a snapshot of the donor in tomorrow’s Style section. Not surprisingly, Abe Pollin was a longtime donor to United Way of the National Capital Area—and a generous one.

As a member of UWNCA’s Tocqueville Society, he gave large, but he also gave across the spectrum of UWNCA’s hundreds of member agencies. Pollin was all about building a community, not a single cause. He long ago recognized UWNCA as a great vehicle through which to do that.

Pollin’s sports empire depended on attracting ticket-buyers of all kinds, from all across the metropolitan area. He did it very successfully. It was the same ground-level strategy that attracted him to UWNCA, and kept him attracted.

Pollin once told me that he knew that the social problems of the Washington metropolitan area were too big for any one non-profit to solve. So he gave to the organization that provides funds to dozens of them. Funded across the board, working together, these agencies have a far better chance of success than they’d ever have working separately. Pollin “got” that, throughout his life.

Nothing ever prevented Abe Pollin from writing a check to a single organization, and nothing prevents anyone else from doing the same. But if a rising tide lifts all boats, it does that double in the world of philanthropy.

Abe Pollin was a rising tide kind of guy. He always saw across the region, not just one organization and one street corner at a time.

Any man who fired Michael Jordan is a man who doesn’t doubt his own judgment. But as a philanthropist, Pollin knew that his judgment had to change, and change, and change again.

He was deeply and permanently in love with his adopted home town. But he knew that local social issues would always change. So would the organizations. So would the personalities. What better way to help the community solve problems new and old than to give to the one organization that has stood the test of time in local philanthropy?

Rest well, Mr. Pollin. Your example inspires all of us at UWNCA, and always will.

It's Easy Not to Notice...

2009-11-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

Last week, I visited with top management and staff at BAE Systems, a major defense consulting firm based in Rosslyn. They’re considering ramped-up participation in UWNCA. But they weren’t clear on the need for it in the Washington area, because so many of them are relatively recent transplants.

I had the chance to speak to their team and shared the following:

"It’s very easy not to notice need in the Washington area. After all, our region includes a few of the five richest counties in America, per capita — Fairfax, Loudoun and Montgomery.

If you try to get a seat in the Metro during the morning rush hour, you usually can’t — because so many people are going to work. If you walk around a ten-square-block area in downtown Bethesda, you can find more than 100 white-tablecloth restaurants. The Washington area looks like the one place that the recession missed but, the reality is vastly different. Financial uncertainty is everywhere, of the same kind and in the same proportions as anywhere else.

My friend Lynn Brantley, the head of Capital Area Food Bank, told me a few months ago that she is seeing people at her front door that she has never seen before. They are ‘pushouts,’ she says — people who have always had enough money to put food on the table, but now cannot, because of layoffs.

It’s up to the entire community to bridge this gap. And UWNCA is the best way to do it. Not only can dollars be designated to individual agencies via UWNCA, but they can be aimed at complicated community problems via our Community Impact program. Rather than giving just to one agency, or several, a donor can attack an entire problem by giving to agencies that all deal with it in some way.

This strikes me as just so bloody intelligent. Via UWNCA, comprehensive solutions are possible. This is an organization that listened to what the problems really are —how deep and how wide -- and devised a way to tackle them."

Nods and smiles were everywhere in my audience. We’ll see if dollars soon are too. In the meantime, I hope everyone at UWNCA and in the wider community will appreciate what this organization has always done, and can still do.

It Was All About Fitness...

2009-11-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

Mark Jenkins is a 39-year-old Navy veteran who fought in the first Gulf War. He has served as a personal trainer to such stars as Puff Daddy and Mary J. Blige. You can tell from 100 feet away that he’s in better shape than you are—or ever will be.

But he almost met his match on Wednesday—first from a dozen students at Neval Thomas Elementary School in Northeast Washington, then from 45 staff members of UWNCA.
It was all about fitness, the desire to achieve it and the work that it takes to get there. After leading the students through a 30-minute series of exercises, and the adults through 20 minutes more, Jenkins had this to say:“They can all be in better shape. But they all had the right attitude.”

Instilling fitness via a positive approach is the centerpiece of a UWNCA program that will be rolled out around the region in the first five months of 2010.

Called Fun, Fly and Fit, the program has been under construction for the last nine months, under the leadership of UWNCA’s Euniesha Davis. FFF will be introduced into 11 area schools between January and May. It may eventually grow to 100 schools and extend to workplaces, Euniesha said. FFF is a major UWNCA priority, according to CEO Bill Hanbury.

Wednesday’s kickoff event featured huffs, puffs and (among the adults) grimaces but, it also featured determination.

“We all have work to do. We could all be more fit, including this guy,” said Hanbury, as he pointed at himself. “But we’re all trying to be committed to it.”

Thomas students weren’t quite ready to make such a promise. But they were intrigued.
When Jenkins demonstrated a drill where students hopped from circle to circle while pushing a ball in front of them, the kids elbowed each other out of the way to be first in line. When he gave them red jump ropes and demonstrated, they followed with a smile. When he told them to feel their biceps while jogging in place, the kids did so—and they looked pleased at the power they found.

“We have some children who are having a problem (with weight control and fitness),” said Ruth Barnes, Thomas’s principal. “But we are working with nutrition,” she said. FFF will be “welcome at the school,” she said.

Mark Jenkins did not baby the casually clad adults from UWNCA. No sooner had they taken their places around the linoleum floor of the Thomas auditorium than Jenkins asked:
“Whose first workout is this in the last two months?”

Several sets of eyes fell sheepishly to the floor but, there were few dropouts as Jenkins led the group through a regimen of bending, stooping, squatting, swaying, stretching and throwing mock punches.

“You’ve got to find a way to get the workouts in, people,” he said. No one promised, but no one disagreed, either. Jenkins told the group that 30 minutes of exercise a day, five times a week, will add a year to one’s life, and reduce the chances of cardiovascular disease by 50 percent. That drew nods and murmured vows.

It was just one nice autumn day in Northeast Washington. But for UWNCA’s staff, it may have been the start of a whole new lifestyle.

"Would You Like To Support United Way?"

2009-11-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

The year was 1967, but the memory is still fresh.

A woman marched up to my desk in the crowded newsroom of The Washington Post. I had worked there for a week. Finding the men's room and the cafeteria were still major challenges.
"Would you like to support United Way?," she said.
I had never heard of it.

I had grown up in another city, gone to college elsewhere, knew very little about the Washington metropolitan area. I had never given a nickel to any charity because I hadn't had a nickel to give.
But the woman said something to me that day that made this leopard change his spots.
"United Way unites us," she said. I immediately made a donation. I've done so for each of the last 42 years. And now I'm inside the belly of the beast.

In early November, I signed on to the staff of United Way of the National Capital Area. My job will be to sing the song--explain why a dollar given to United Way is a dollar that makes us all stronger. This blog will be one important place where that song will get sung.

I doubt that I can make the case more crisply than my colleague made it more than four decades ago. So let me build on her choice of words. This is a community with terrific strengths, yet underlying weaknesses. We are as vulnerable to social and economic troubles as any place else. And we have always been generous about donating money to address those problems.
But we're a community that embraces parts of two states and all of an unusual place called the District of Columbia. There can be only one solution to the problems of the area as a whole. It's called United Way.

Like Superman, it leaps borders in a single bound. It doesn't offer an Alexandria solution, a Hyattsville solution and a Northeast Washington solution. It wraps the entire metropolitan area in one blanket and says: "A gift from anyone is a gift to everyone."

No other organization does that as widely or as well. No other organization aims donated dollars so quickly or so closely at the problems they can fix. No other organization treats every need and every nonprofit organization with the same degree of importance. I work for UWNCA because of that philosophy.

This isn't a place where solutions rain down from 30,000 feet. This isn't a place where politics and status dictate who gets help and who doesn't. This is a place that seeks ground-level answers, finds them, funds them and makes sure that even the smallest pieces of the solution won't get overlooked.

Best of all, United Way seeks out community-based decisions and decision-makers.
In each of the eight areas it serves, a board of volunteers meets regularly. It and it alone decides how to allocate Community Impact funds in that jurisdiction. No government official or UWNCA official puts his thumb on the scale.

Community Impact money is allocated to fix an entire problem, not just to fund one agency. So, for example, if Falls Church has an issue with teenage pregnancy, volunteers in that community can fund education programs, health programs, after-school programs and possibly others. It's all up to them.

I'd be happy to discuss UWNCA with anyone, at any time. My e-mail address is blevey@uwnca.org. Don't be bashful. If you'd like more information about making a donation, I'd be happy to discuss that, too.

The annual United Way campaign is in high gear throughout the fall. This would be an excellent time to support our community. It would be an excellent way to say what I began saying 42 years ago: This is my community, and this is my way of uniting us.