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

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

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

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...

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

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"

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.