LIVE UNITED Y’All!

By Christopher Locke

Wow, it’s that time of the year again! A time when young people of all ages have visions of cartoon-covered backpacks, reams of three-hole, loose leaf paper and bounties of yellow Number 2 pencils dancing in their heads… Which means it’s indeed time for school! With the return to school and visions in mind, I’m reminded of a Henry David Thoreau quote that says “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

And while most parents and adults in the community are expectedly looking at purchasing items like sports and band uniforms, instruments, or even lab supplies to support their children’s education success in the classroom and school– a lot of well-meaning and caring adults have been spending a lot of time creating a compelling child-centered, community-based vision for young people to be successful outside the classroom and school. These caring adults and young people were callers, conveners and participants in a community effort called the Youth Vision. It was exciting to participate and witness the process of developing a vision that the community can be proud of that will also mobilize us to action.

The community response to an invitation from a group of youth development and education experts convened by Metro United Way to come and share their thoughts on youth success was overwhelming. When all the conversations were complete, 36 community conversations had taken place with residents from 30 of the 32 zip codes in the Louisville Metro area, from 11 other Kentucky zip codes and from 3 Southern Indiana County zip codes. The participant demographics revealed that the conversations had attracted broad and diverse participation from community residents interested in young people.

And as Thoreau said, they looked at some things. In fact, the participants looked at a long list of depressing challenges that often impede many young people’s paths to educational success.

• 1 in 4 freshman entering 9^th grade in JCPS don’t graduate on time and in four years with their peers.
• 65% of JCPS students are on free and reduced lunch.
• Worse still, last year JCPS reports that 10,500 students were classified as homeless.

In all three cases, a disproportionate number of the students are African American and Latino.

But again, like Thoreau wisely recommended, the community residents participating in the youth vision conversations did not get mired in pessimism. No, instead, this spirited group, led by Metro United Way and Metro Government, decided that the callers and the residents see what matters. So the optimists flipped the deficit-based reality that many of our students and families deal with everyday on its head and decided to engage resident voices in the process by asking three strengths or asset-based questions.

• Think about a young person in your life…What are your hopes and wishes for their success?
• What helps a young person be successful?
• If you could waive a magic wand, how would our community look different if ALL youth were succeeding?

After over 500 people had answered, the compelling Youth Vision emerged.

Louisville Youth…

• Have the skills and education to be self reliant, healthy, engaged and economically thriving.
• Have hope and show strength of character to achieve their goals, follow their dreams, respect others and contribute to bettering their community and world.
• Live in a caring community where everyone values, supports, invests in and fights for their success.

It sounds  pretty compelling to me, and we hope you agree! What are some of your ideas for our community’s youth? Would you be willing to act in creative ways to bring this vision to life in the community? How?

Advocacy, Education, General back to school, Children, Community, Education, future, High School Graduation, kindergarten, making a difference, Metro United Way, opportunity, parenting, Southern Indiana, students, success, youth, youth development, Youth Vision

by Mary Ann Steutermann

I’ll admit it – I have few domestic skills. In particular, I absolutely, positively do not cook because 1) I don’t enjoy it and 2) previous attempts have resulted in blaring smoke alarms and upset stomachs. Fortunately for me, I am married to a great cook who both enjoys the process of creating a fine meal and actually produces dishes that people find not only edible but downright delicious. Over the years, I have watched him in the kitchen preparing a meal, and I’ve learned his secret to success – preparation.

The Right Ingredients

I was surprised to learn that most of my husband’s culinary efforts go into selecting the best ingredients and then spending quite a bit of time cutting, chopping, dicing, and seasoning them. In fact, he probably spends at least twice as much time preparing the ingredients as he does actually heating something on the stove or baking it in the over. Similarly, Metro United Way has been hard at work preparing to develop a strategy map that will guide our efforts in the coming years as we work to ensure that all of our children arrive at kindergarten ready to be successful and that at least 87% of them complete high school by earning their diplomas.

Just as it’s tempting to jump right into to turning up the heat on the stove without taking the time to chop and season the ingredients first, it’s tempting for an organization to jump too quickly to decisions about its future work without doing the necessary leg work in preparation. But we won’t make that common mistake. In fact, we’ve been hard at work in the kitchen for several months now.

Engaging the Community

Before settling on our specific strategies in support of educational progress, we have been doing a lot of homework. An essential part of this has been engaging the community in various ways in order to make sure we have all of the data and information needed to make good decisions. We have been working with various groups to get their feedback on our emerging role as leaders in community support of educational progress. So far we have engaged the community through:
• Donor conversations
• Colleague discussions
• CEO calls
• CSC committee discussions
• Council of Agency Executives discussions
• CI Cabinet conversations

Another major engagement opportunity we have embarked upon is an Education Research Project in conjunction with Kentucky Youth Advocates. In addition to providing the latest research on how to promote high school graduation and reporting on essential quantitative data by county, the project has also engaged superintendents, principals, government officials, business persons, faith-based leaders, parent organization leaders, service providers, and various other community movers and shakers on their perceptions of both strengths as well as perceived needs. This will allow us to not only identify what is going on in each county in each of the 5 “tipping points” of the UWW education framework (kindergarten readiness, 4th grade reading, middle school transition, high school graduation, and college/career), but it will also let us also know what the community feels they most need to see improvement in educational attainment.

We are in the process of planning community forums in each county to discuss the results and get further input during October and November. We’ll keep you posted on this!

Lessons Learned

Without a doubt, I will never cook a sumptuous meal that meets with the praise (and shock) of my family and friends. But lots of us at MUW have been hard at work in the kitchen doing the prep work on another masterpiece – a framework for moving forward as community leaders in support of greater educational attainment. Watching my husband prepare a wonderful meal has taught me that an ideal result to any creative endeavor takes patience, preparation, and persistence. Even though the thought of applying these traits in a real live kitchen gives me hives, I’m thrilled to be applying them to our emerging plan for helping our community meet its educational goals.

Advocacy, Education, General advocate, Children, Community, Education, engagement, future, Louisville, making a difference, Metro United Way, research, strategic planning, youth

With school having just started back, education seems to be on everyone’s mind.  Getting over the anxieties and challenges of starting a new school year can be a big hurdle – especially if your child is entering kindergarten or a new school.  This year, my son is a 5^th grader at a school that he has attended since pre-school, but my daughter started at a new school as an incoming 6^th grader entering middle school.  At orientation, she remarked “This place is BIG!”  As a parent putting myself in her shoes, I couldn’t have agreed more.

When children have a supportive family and a stable home environment, doing well in school can still be a significant challenge.  Keeping up with all of their subjects, text books, assignment sheets, daily reading, and long-term projects can be a tall task!  However, there are much greater challenges being faced by large numbers of children in our community.

Last year, 10,555 students in Jefferson County Schools were homeless at some point during the year.  To me, that number is staggering, both in terms of volume, as well as impact for each child.  I think about how difficult it must be to try to focus on academics when you may not know where you are going to eat or sleep.  Even if you’re staying with another family, sleeping on a couch in the living room is a far cry from sleeping in the comfort of your own bed in a private space.  It’s also painful to think about the many situations which may have caused the unstable housing to begin with – the loss of a job, a serious illness or death in the family, a lack of financial resources, chemical dependency, mental illness, domestic violence.  Every situation is unique.

Fortunately for us, our community is thinking about some of these most challenged students and how we can support them to make sure they have a fighting chance in school.  Organizations like the Metropolitan Housing Coalition, the Coalition for the Homeless and systems like Jefferson County Public Schools, our Kentucky’s Department of Community Based Services (child welfare), and Family Courts are teaming up to discuss how we can better support homeless children and their families, and how all of our systems can work together to ensure all children have every chance to be successful, by addressing their holistic needs.  When organizations and individuals come together around common goals, amazing things can happen.

I invite you to consider what it would be like to be in a homeless child’s shoes trying to learn in the classroom.  What images does this evoke for you?  How could taking on this perspective help us all as a community to better support these children’s academic success and long-term stability? 

Education, General Add new tag, Children, Coalition for the Homeless, Education, future, homeless, Jefferson County Public Schools, Live United, Louisville, making a difference, Metro United Way, Metropolitan Housing Coalition, parenting, youth

By Natalie Harris

I came across this article,  The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers, by David Leonhardt, in the New York Times business section this morning, and with all the buzz about our recent Kindergarten Countdown event at Slugger Field, I thought the timing was too good to be ignored.

While the article is a bit of an opinion piece (ultimately treading into some potential education policy minefields), I thought the greater point of the study discussed was clearly worth mentioning:  kindergarten, when done well, has an incredible long-term impact.  As Leonhardt sums up:

Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.

An that “more” is nothing to sneeze at:

A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average.

The study discussed, “How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earings? Evidence From Project STAR”, ultimately concludes that an outstanding kindergarten teacher is worth $320,000 a year.

This could definitely be viewed as depressing news in these days of budget cuts, school closings (i.e. bigger classrooms), and big challenges for even the best teachers — the ultimate toll all this can take on the community is alarming — but it should also be viewed as a call to action.

The work Metro United Way does in support of early childhood education (Success By 6, Gheens Bridges to Tomorrow, Born Learning and more) pushes us towards one goal:  making sure that our children arrive in kindergarten ready to succeed.  This moment of economic crisis makes it even more imperative that we do the work, with our community’s help, to meet this goal.

Education, Events, General early childhood, kindergarten, Kindergarten Countdown, Metro United Way, Success By 6

By Kelly Hutchinson, Donor Relationship Manager

This post is all about the United Way campaign in Scranton that Dunder Mifflin hosts to benefit United Way. That would be the Lackawanna County United Way in case you were wondering.  When the folks give at The Office they are helping advance the common good and create opportunities for a better life for all.

And just why would I share a post with you about the Dunder Mifflin campaign you ask?  Well I will tell you.  It’s because they do such a great job with their campaign at The Office that they are even an award winning company!

I promise I don’t make this stuff up. Look on the wall next time you watch and perhaps by the copier and just maybe you will see it there too. It is the Dunder Mifflin Extraordinary Campaign award from United Way.  Yep, that’s right the good folks at The Office care about their community and their neighbors and they are all part of the change they want to see in their community. 

My guess is that Dwight Schrutte used to organize the campaign. I think that this year Pam Beesly will be appointed by Michael Scott the CEO to serve as the campaign coordinator for The Office.  Michael sees great leadership potential in Pam and knows that she could do a great job making plans and working with the United Way staff.  Pam will love her new role and enjoyed making friends and meeting other coordinators in the community who run campaigns for their workplace.  

Pam will do her part each fall to organize an efficient and fun campaign that offers all her co-workers the chance to give, advocate and volunteer. They all feel proud of the award on the wall and the fact that when they each do their part that they can make a big difference in Scranton.

Some of the associates at The Office will help Pam with the campaign by planning fun events to celebrate their campaign and thank their donors. Dwight said that Meredith  likes supporting the campaign because it helps so many organizations. They all find that having their United Way campaign at The Office provides for a team-building experience.

So now I want to know just a couple things. Seriously for a moment please….The Office hosts a United Way campaign –does your company?  If your answer is ‘no’ then I don’t want it to be because you were never asked. If you don’t have a campaign and you want your company to be in good company alongside community corporate leaders at companies of all sizes like UPS, GE, Humana, Kroger, Atlas Machine or Deco Paper then let us help you get on board. It’s easy, fun and efficient. We would welcome the chance to start a relationship with you where together we can accomplish more than any one organization can alone.

Please join us this year. We all win in our local community when children succeed in school, families are financially stable and people enjoy good health. We want YOU and your company to join us this year and be part of the community campaign.

If you do have a campaign for Metro United Way, then I of course want to say ‘thank you’ for caring and sharing. You make it all happen here. You make our home town a stronger, better place to live and work. Even in the face of challenging economic times you and your company have made it a priority to help people in crisis now with basic needs support while taking on issues that are going to make our community stronger in the future. A heartfelt thanks to you and your office!

General, Giving, Volunteering Giving, Metro United Way, Start a United Way campaign, The Office, Workplace Campaign

By Mary Sullivan

What do wide eyes and laughter have in common?  Let me go a little further in my explanation. Recently 240 students from Holy Cross High School spent the day volunteering. Two of the sites I visited were Iroquois Child Care Center and California Area Family Development Center. I heard laughter from both children and students as they were bouncing balls up into the air. Children were wrapped around the legs of these students, and in another room three little girls wanted to show their dolls to one of the boys.

Today, we often read or hear about how young people aren’t engaged, but in one day Holy Cross students volunteered at nine different organizations, provided 1320 service hours, and gave back $27,522.00 of in-kind service to our community. Holy Cross High School certainly isn’t the only school that does volunteer work. So far this school year, Metro United Way has coordinated volunteer projects for Barret Middle School, Moore Middle School, Spalding University, Bellarmine University, IUS and U of L.

Metro United Way has been supportive of youth volunteering for many years, and for 22 years, Metro United Way has recognized a high school senior for their volunteer effort by awarding a $3,000 scholarship.  In fact, Volunteer Engagement Center origins began from a partnership with U of L School of Recreation, the Junior League of Louisville and Metro United Way (Community Chest). Since the 1930’s until today, helping youth map out their career choices or exploring interests through volunteering has always been part of what we do. So if you a student or a group looking to do something this summer, need to do community service hours for school or your faith based organization, want to meet interesting people, or just have fun, please contact the Volunteer Engagement Center’s website at metrounitedway.org/volunteer.

Education, Volunteering community change, early childhood, future, making a difference, Metro United Way, scholarship, youth

By Sarah Heine

National Volunteer Week provides the opportunity for organizations and communities to thank the volunteers who work so diligently year round, donating their time, money and support to help make our community the most successful and positive place it can be. It also gives Metro United Way a chance to spotlight and thank some of the volunteers in our community who have made volunteerism a huge part of their day-to-day lives.

Interning in the Volunteer Engagement Center here at Metro United Way has provided me with the opportunity to learn about the organizations serving our community. It has also allowed me to meet  some of the volunteers who are so vital to the continued success of these organizations and of Metro United Way and to learn about their experiences and motivations for giving back.

A few weeks ago, I chatted with Ilma Hirsch about her volunteer experiences and her relationship with Metro United Way. She is an absolutely lovely 95-year-old woman who began volunteering with Metro United Way back when it was called Community Chest.

Ilma talked about the timelessness of volunteerism, how it is just as necessary today as it was when she was young, and how it enriches not only the organizations, but also the lives of the individuals who commit their time and energy to volunteering. We talked about the importance of integrating volunteerism into one’s life and of passing on that importance to the next generation. Ilma felt that was especially important- one of her greatest donations to the community she served was her children’s activism and community involvement.

Ilma also talked about getting involved with organizations that give the volunteer a personal connection with the work that they are doing. Ilma first got involved with Metro United Way through her involvement with the the  National Council of Jewish Women. Having a connection to the work you are doing enriches the experience for both the organization and for the volunteer.

I really enjoyed speaking with Ilma and hearing her perspectives and anecdotes about her experiences as a volunteer and with Metro United Way long before either I, or Metro United Way (in its current form) were around. As a young volunteer it is easy to forget I am not the first, and will not be the last community member doing what I can to give back. Volunteering always has been and always will be vital to the success of organizations and communities alike.

Do you volunteer? If so, where? Is there a personal connection or reason you give your time to that organization? If you are not already involved and would like to be, Metro United Way provides resources for volunteer opportunities across Kentuckiana on our website.

Whether you volunteer now, have in the past, or would like to in the future, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. Your time and energy really do make a difference.

THANKS!

Volunteering Community, community chest, Metro United Way, National Volunteer Month, thank you, Volunteer Engagement Center

By Jan Sherrell

Trying to name one volunteer to blog about during April, Metro United Way Volunteer Month, is like asking me to name my favorite kid. It is even harder because I have two kids, making that a 50/50 choice, and I have about 45 volunteers, making it a real tough choice.

When I first started at Metro United Way, I viewed volunteers as just one more task to take care of on my list. I would make reminder phone calls, make sure all their materials were prepped, and perhaps cater to them by having their favorite diet Big Red on hand for meetings.

Now after nine years of watching the dynamics of volunteers, I recognize they are catering to US at Metro United Way. They are bringing their valuable resources of time and experience to serve the community through Metro Untied Way by participating in the agency review process I help facilitate. These generous volunteers read 20 page reports, drive across town and find parking, all to engage in sometimes difficult conversations.

Volunteers bring such insight, life experience and topical knowledge to these conversations and decisions. I really enjoy getting to know my volunteers. They become more than a means to an end; they become friends.

I won’t use the word favorite, because that might hurt the feelings of my other 44 volunteers, but Judy Lyons is one of my “strongest” volunteers. She is a retired agency director, and that gives her unique insight to agency reviews. She is also a sweet soul; she can find the volunteers in the room feeling less confident and sure and buddy right up to them and mentor them along. When in committee, she brings the conversation back around to where it needs to be and is generous in helping us understand all the challenges faced by agencies and their clients. She seems to really enjoy volunteering and intentionally makes time for it in her busy retired life.

So now instead of feeling like I’m catering to a volunteer when I make sure they have hot fresh coffee, or resend them documents they’ve misplaced, I totally recognize they are catering to me by being a strong important part of Metro United Way work.

Does your work involve volunteers? Do you have a favorite? Or perhaps you are the volunteer – do you have a favorite staff?

General, Volunteering Agencies, appreciation, community service, making a difference, Metro United Way

By Kelly Hutchinson, Donor Relationship Manager

I am old enough to remember rather vividly when Billie Jean King took the court to play Bobby Riggs. This fact really has very, very little to do with much about me except I really wanted her to win. Having lived through more than a few decades, I will attest the times they are a-changing. So this post unfolds as Score 1 for the Women.

An amazing thing has happened over the last decade. Women now give more to charity than men. That’s right. Women on average donate twice as much to charity and make 3 times the number of donations as men. Although there is still a disparity in the equality of work and pay, even still, women are leading the way when it comes to charitable giving.

According to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, collectively, women support a variety of causes but the research shows that the majority is designated for the needs of children, creating opportunities for women, education and health issues.

Today’s affluent donor is just as likely to be a woman as a man and the research shows that women want something different from their philanthropic giving. No surprise there. Of course we do.

Women want to create new solutions for old problems. Women want to enjoy a personal connection to an organization and they want to collaborate and work with others as part of a larger effort. Women want to win and they want to make the world a better place and they want their lives to make a difference in the lives of others. When women can do this through giving it makes them feel empowered. Last but not least, women want to celebrate…or socialize with others!

Now, consider this…3 of every 4 people living in poverty in the United States are women and children. Yet even so, women with annual incomes less than $10,000 who are often homemakers with children gave 5.4% of their income to charity – the largest income to gift percentage for giving!

At Metro United Way we know that we all win in our community when children succeed in school, when families are financially stable and people have improved health. 

Wanna know more about what women want? Well just ASK. Seriously, if you ask a woman for her opinion, she will more often than not give it to you. Listen and learn. Want to know more about how to improve lives in our community and create opportunities for a brighter tomorrow for men, women and children in our community? Together we will accomplish more than any single organization or man…or woman can alone.

Giving, Income, Volunteering Add new tag, Metro United Way, Women and Charitable Giving

By Sommer Lally

The first day of Spring is tomorrow and I don’t know about you but, for me, it can’t get here soon enough!  Maybe it has something to do with my name but I hate cold weather like a cat hates water so, the arrival of Spring is always something I look forward to.  But this year I am especially excited.  You see, I bought my first house last fall and I’ve not yet been able to enjoy basking in the sunshine in my new yard. 

My husband and I already purchased and assembled (okay, okay, he assembled) a grill and have plans in the works for patio furniture.  Even better, I’ve talked him into making improvements to our landscaping.  As you can see, right now the landscaping leaves (no pun intended) a little to be desired.

I’m thinking some nice evergreen shrubs and some leafy bushes might do the trick.  There’s just one little catch.  As I’ve been reading up on landscaping tips, it has become clear – much to my chagrin – that we won’t reap the benefits immediately.  It will take years for the shrubs and bushes we plant this spring to grow and mature into the beautiful landscape of my dreams.  Slowly but surely, it will get there.  I just have to be patient, which is not my strong suit.

When I think about it, landscaping is kind of like the work around community change that we’re doing here at Metro United Way.  Community change doesn’t happen over night, it takes years to see the results of the work you’re putting in today.  But you better believe when 2018 rolls around and all of the children in our community are prepared to enter kindergarten and half as many high students are dropping out, we will know that our efforts were worth it.

What about those of us who need to see the immediate results?  I would put myself into this category which is where the grill and patio furniture come in.  They’ll allow me to enjoy my yard immediately, albeit in a different way.  The same is true for our focus on basic needs here at Metro United Way.  Our investments in early childhood education and drop-out prevention will pay-off in the future while those in basic needs help the community right now. 

It helps me to think of our work in this way.  How do you think of Metro United Way’s work?  What helps you to better understand and communicate to others what we do?

Education, General Children, community change, early childhood, making a difference, Metro United Way