UNITED WAY REPORT TOUCHES ON RECENT CHANGES

Concluding its most successful campaign to date, the Area Wide United Way held its annual meeting Thursday.

The official total for the 1999 campaign was revealed as $812, 615.85, a 15 percent increase over the $690,887 raised during the 1998 campaign.

"It takes a lot of work to pull off a campaign as successful as this one," said Craig Wells, chairman of the 1999 campaign.

It also takes a lot of people, said Nancy Jernigan, executive director of the United Way, during her annual report. Some 300 people were involved in the campaign and they came from throughout the community.

"It's rewarding to see the results of our efforts," she said as she looked at the total.

That money will be distributed among programs run by 26 agencies.

"These are charities that provide a better return on the investment than tax dollars do," Jernigan said.

The United Way has embarked on some changes this year that Jernigan touched on in her report.

One was changing an "a" to a "the" in the United Way's mission statement. It now reads "The Area Wide United Way serves as THE leader in coordinating people and securing resources to care for people in our communities."

"Being the' leader bears more responsibility," Jernigan said, adding that it means United Way must be proactive rather than reactive and stay educated on the issues facing the community. "But we are up to the task."

She said the United Way board has been developing a strategic plan that includes increasing resources, which was done this year by raising more money, and adding value beyond agency funding.

The latter means the United Way undertaking programs of its own rather than just providing money to programs run by other agencies.

Two of those programs involve coordinating efforts, she said. First Call for Help, an information and referral line that began operating in September, assists individuals in finding help with health and human services issues and at identifying unmet needs. The Local Assistance Network is a collaborative effort of several agencies to streamline the intake process of individuals applying for emergency aid and to help those individuals with the problems causing them to seek help.

Other programs being developed by the United Way, Jernigan said, were Success by Six, an early childhood development program, and an initiative to get young people involved in philanthropy and volunteerism.

The United Way is also in the middle of a community assessment process, Jernigan said. It has completed the first phase of identifying four major needs of the community. Those are transportation, affordable housing, substance abuse prevention especially among youth and assistance for low-income families.

The next phase, she said, will be a more thorough study on how to address these needs and a portion of the money raised in the 1999 campaign has been set aside for this.

This may not mean new programs, she noted.

"The solution to problems is not always new programs or new money but a new architecture," she said, explaining the solutions to problems may lie in using programs already in place but shifting the focus or learning how those programs can better address needs.

To accomplish all this, the United Way relies on donations, but also on volunteers, Jernigan said. There are great benefits to giving back to the community, she said.

"The challenge is to create a vehicle to get people involved. One of those vehicles is the United Way."

Board of directors officers for 2000 were introduced at the Area Wide United Way's annual meeting Thursday. They are Narvol Randol Jr., president of the board; Richmond Payne, vice president; Bill Miller, treasurer; and Nancy Jernigan, secretary/executive director.

New members on the board of directors are Steve Bjelich, Larry Dunger and John N. Thompson. They replace retiring board members Pat Miller, Donna Turpin and Clare Urhahn.