Aug/111
Erin: Volunteering doesn’t take much time… but makes a big difference
When I met Erin, who's 24, and watched her use her free time after work to help women who are incarcerated read to their children, I thought she'd made an extraordinary choice.
Then, I ran across some new stats about volunteering that confirmed my assumption, especially for her age group. Of people born 1982 or after, 21.4 percent volunteer nationally. But here in Indiana, just 19.4 percent of Millennials volunteer.
Erin has no shortage of options to fill her time. In addition to her full- time job, she will soon start an online class. An avid reader, she's begun reading Gone with the Wind, and she likes to play Frisbee golf with her boyfriend and walk her dog.
But she's matter-of-fact about her weekly volunteer commitment to help mothers and grandmothers tape record stories and write and decorate personal messages to mail to children they are separated from.
She saw the opportunity online. It was close. She wanted a consistent volunteer commitment, and she said yes.
"It doesn't take much time. It adds an hour to my day, and then I'm done for the week. And it makes such a big difference to them,' she explains.
There is nothing matter-of-fact about the response of the women Erin helps. "They (volunteers) take time to show us how to do things right...knowing they care is wonderful...Your voice is so strong...It is such an important connection to your child..."
You can see Erin and the women she's working with on Sept. 6 at 7:30 p.m. during a station break on WRTV 6. It's part of the local television stations' commitment to inspire more volunteers to step up through United Way to be part of the change they want to see in education.
--Mary Kinney, public/media relations director, United Way of Central Indiana
Aug/110
Our board members lead the way!
Ushering in the community’s Day of Caring this coming Friday and Saturday, United Way’s board members and campaign leaders rolled up their sleeves and volunteered this morning at the Purpose of Life Academy. Campaign Chair Marianne Glick took time out from painting to read to one of the students in the newly installed literacy corners.
Thank to all of the participants for their great work! See more photos here.
-- Jody Pope, special events director, United Way of Central Indiana
Aug/110
Harold: He found what was missing, at Hope
"I missed being with young people."
That simple fact set the stage for Harold Grundy's decision to reinvent himself after 31 years of teaching and coaching.
In retirement, Harold found himself "with an abundance of time on my hands." But another, less concrete factor was his sense that "I was missing something in my own recovery."
After five years of recovery, Harold decided that missing "something" was helping others. That decision put him at the door of Fairbanks, first serving men's groups at the treatment and recovery center, and then students at Hope Academy, the high school for young people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.
Steve Rhodes, Andrea Morehead and Harold Grundy
On the first day of the new school year, WTHR's Andrea Morehead interviewed Harold for her station's Sept. 6 United Way segment spotlighting inspiring education volunteers. It will air during a station break of the 7:30 p.m. program that Tuesday.
In the story photographed by Steve Rhodes, you'll hear Harold describe how his experience as a personal mentor and tutor helps young people regain the confidence they need for academic success and sobriety.
Without recovery support to stay sober, students with addictions will likely drop out of school, face years of incarceration or die from the disease, research indicates.
By discovering what was missing in his own life, Harold is helping more kids stay on track to graduate, at Hope.
--Mary Kinney, public/media relations director, United Way of Central Indiana
Aug/110
J.R.’s birthday pledge brings ‘charged batteries,’ high spirits and hugs
Facing a milestone birthday, J.R. Billman made a promise to himself. To mark his 50th, he would take on new volunteer experiences, starting with an opportunity at work.
A pharmacist for Indiana University Health, J.R. thought the short four-week stint with United Way of Central Indiana's Kindergarten Camp at Maple Elementary in Avon would involve "giving my two hours and I'd be done with it."
What he didn't expect was how the experience "charges my batteries...lifts my spirits...and that I'd get hugs every day."
J.R. Billman in action at Kindergarten camp
Billman helped Mrs. Craig, the kindergarten teacher, by singing along to teach colors, encouraging the children to participate in exercises about the calendar and helping in small groups with crafts and other skills intended to provide them a better start in kindergarten.
The Kindergarten orientation is for kids with little to no preschool experience or those who've been identified as being "at-risk" through early screening tools the schools administer.
And, it's apparently also been good for J.R.! "When you volunteer or give to something that resonates with your soul or belief systems...you wind up getting more out of it than you could possibly ever have given!"
Tune in to see J.R. in action by watching the story that WISH TV 8's Scott Sander and videographer Marcus Collins are putting together for United Way's volunteer series on Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m. during a station break.
Many happy returns, J.R.!
--Mary Kinney, public/media relations director, United Way of Central Indiana
Aug/110
Emerging Leaders learn from the best: Brian Payne
Editor's note: In July, United Way's Emerging Leaders had the pleasure of hearing from Brian Payne at their quarterly Leadership Lunch. Read on for Katie Hammer's recap of the lunch and summary of Brian's presentation.
What do being an actor, running a Shakespeare festival and leading the Indiana Repertory Theatre have in common? If you were at our July Leadership Lunch you’d know...they’re all jobs that Brian Payne has held! Needless to say, Brian’s career path has been varied and extremely interesting. Even more interesting is realizing that all of those experiences have made him stronger...stronger in his current role as president and CEO of Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF), stronger as a community leader and stronger in his conviction that Indianapolis is an amazing place to live.
Brian Payne
When he graduated from UCLA with the goal of being a famous actor, Brian didn’t anticipate that he would end up in Indianapolis. In fact, he was determined to stay put in LA. He put in his time as an intern at 20th Century Fox, and began to realize that the entertainment industry was tough…really tough. So he refocused his efforts and decided to pursue a master's degree. His eye was now on producing, a path that led him to a role as the leader of the second largest Shakespeare festival in the United States. Obviously, his work aligned with his goals and for seven years, he was satisfied.
Then Brian started to feel like a lot of us have - he started to feel that he had stayed in one job too long and that he had ruined his career by not striving for a new position sooner. As a result, he began to be depressed, and was having trouble seeing the positive points of his situation. With those thoughts in mind, he decided to give a year’s notice at the festival, and then return to Hollywood as a producer. But as time went by, he began to dread returning to the entertainment industry and ultimately decided to apply for a position as the managing director of the Indiana Repertory Theatre. When he moved to Indianapolis, his closest friends and family were in Texas and California, but, for the first time, he was convinced that his career was on track. He stayed at the IRT for seven years and made some amazing inroads within the Central Indiana community, taking care to establish a presence within community organizations.
When the position of president was vacated at CICF, Brian knew that it would be an amazing opportunity. That being said, he wasn’t willing to compromise the relationships he had built through IRT to pursue the position. He knew that if he was meant to have the job, those hiring for the position would think of him. Since he had taken the time to build a network within the community, the hiring group did think of him. He was offered the job and instantly knew that he would finally have the access and opportunity he needed to make real impact in the community. So, the most important question is: how did Brian’s career transformation happen? How did he go from unsatisfied to loving his professional life? He has several ideas on how to initiate your own transformation:
- Figure out what you value. Seek out the things that you love, that you are really good at, and incorporate them into your career. Of course, everyone has weaknesses, but the trick is to make the most of your strengths. You can work on improving other skills or even surround yourself with others that compliment what you bring to the table.
- Realize the importance of place. One of Brian’s main passions is making Indianapolis a top ten city. He is convinced that everyone should be clamoring to live and work here. His message to young professionals in Indy is that you can come here from anywhere and find a way to get involved with community leadership. According to Brian, “If you want to change and create a community, come to Indianapolis.” His other message around the importance of place is to always be aware of whether a place is right for you. Make sure that the place matches up with your passions, your skills, and your goals.
- Create a frame for yourself and your career. You have to figure out how to make your experiences applicable to what you want to do now. Brian also believes in being the curator of your own life - manage what comes in, what stays and what is on display.
What great words of wisdom! Thanks again, Brian! And we can’t wait for the September Leadership Lunch, featuring Marianne Glick, 2011 campaign chair for United Way of Central Indiana. Learn more and register here.
--Katie Hammer, Senior Manager of Donor Relations and
Emerging Leaders Program Manager, United Way
Aug/110
I LIVE UNITED as a member of Women United
Hello, I’m Shari Alexander Richey, and I LIVE UNITED by giving and volunteering as part of Women United. I am in my second year as chair of Women United, which currently has more than 629 energetic and enthusiastic members!
- Shari Alexander Richey
I wanted to take a moment to tell you what our Women United group is doing to LIVE UNITED. We are in the midst of giving our time to Indianapolis Public School 57, and it has been incredibly rewarding already!
In a number of our discussions about what we wished to do to make an impact, we agreed that reaching out to vulnerable youth at some of our city’s public schools would be a great start. For me, this is exciting as I am the product of a modest upbringing in a rural public school in Indiana. I recall how impactful it was for me to see educated, articulate and successful adults come in to speak to my classes as I was growing up. The opportunity to give back in this way really resonated with me.
With the help of our incredible staff member, Amber Ewing, we found ourselves partnering with Girls, Inc. In April, we kicked off our three-week mentoring sessions with some wonderful grade school girls during their lunch hour!
The day I volunteered, I was blessed to be paired with some very curious and vivacious fifth-graders. Given that I’m a mother of a fifth-grade girl and third-grade boy, I had some notion of what to expect. However, no one could have prepared me for the joy I experienced in spending this fleeting 60 minutes with these girls discussing different kinds of careers and the preparatory education required.
They had so many questions about my life as a certified public accountant, but more importantly, they shared their dreams with me of what they wanted to be. How fortunate for me to be able to listen, to give them some helpful advice on what was going to be required to get to their goals, and most of all, to show them that anything is possible with hard work, dedication and a positive attitude.
I hope I was able to give them something of value. Regardless, they blessed me beyond measure. This is what LIVING UNITED means to me.
--Shari Alexander Richey
Aug/110
Your gifts, Alan’s story: If you can only do a little, it could end up being a lot!
Editor's note: In June 2011, United Way of Central Indiana committed to mobilize more than 1,600 volunteer tutors for its ReadUP program for the 2011-12 school year and has allocated $215,600. This ambitious goal is almost twice the number who tutored last year. It's part of a national United Way initiative to recruit one million new readers, tutors, and mentors over the next three years. United Way believes that everyone can make a difference by volunteering in their community and that by reading, tutoring or mentoring a child, you can change the future. United Way's Volunteer Center director, Alan Witchey, doesn't just advocate for the program. He LIVES UNITED as a ReadUP tutor himself. Here are Alan's personal reflections about the experience.
Alan Witchey
In May, I finished my third year as a ReadUP tutor. My commitment has been fairly simple. Once a week, I go to an IPS elementary school for one hour. During that hour, I meet with two different students for 30 minutes each. Each student is tutored three times a week by different adults.
My goal was to get my students (who were about one year behind) up to grade level reading by the end of the school year. That meant they had to grow two years in reading – the one they were behind in and the current one.
I had heard about the need in our school system. I had read the grim statistics. I don't know the reasons why. But I don't need to know them in order to tutor. I just know that I want to be part of the solution.
I want to look back in life and be certain I didn't make the mistake that Edmund Burke once warned about, "No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
I was going to do my little part – one hour a week – to be part of the solution. But when the school year was over, I was left with two questions: Was it worth it? Did I make a difference?
I could turn to standardized testing for my answer. More than half the students in ReadUP reached grade level reading according to state-administered testing. That's success worth celebrating! But it doesn't tell the story.
This past year, I tutored two boys. Let's call them Jerry and Terrance. In the year I knew Jerry, he and his mother became homeless losing nearly all their possessions, lived for six weeks on an aunt's couch, found stable housing, left and then re-entered the ReadUP program.
I was sure I would never see Jerry again. Imagine my surprise when he returned to school and was excited to resume ReadUP. At the end of the year, Jerry said to me, "I used to be a really bad reader. But now I'm really good because of ReadUP."
Jerry's reading score did increase to grade level. Was that because of ReadUP? Or because he had a positive adult role model meeting him three times a week? Or was it his own determination to improve?
I won't ever know, but I do know that we had some positive influence on his desire to read. The last thing he said to me before summer break was, "I have five books picked out to read this summer...last summer, I didn't look at any books."
When I started tutoring Terrence, I thought he was a pretty good reader. I even wondered if he had been mistakenly put into the program. Then, about eight weeks into my tutoring, I received this note from his teacher: "Terrance is a bright kid. He is lazy and won't do any work!"
Those words hit me like a ton of bricks. Here I had been working on building his reading skills when he needed something else entirely.
Normally, when Terrance sat down for our session, we opened the book and began reading right away. The day I received the note, I started by asking him, "Why don't you do your homework?"
What I learned was that he didn't think anyone cared about his grades. If he passed or failed, there was no different reaction. There was no reaction at all.
From that day on, we started each session with a conversation about how school was going. "Have you done your homework? How are your grades? You are such a smart kid. I really care and want you to do well in school," I said.
My goal was to provide as much positive reinforcement as I could and to tell him how important school was to his future. As time passed, I didn't have to ask the questions anymore. He would voluntarily tell me!
Terrence's reading scores did go up too. But most importantly, he ended the year with the knowledge that at least one more person in his life cared if he did well.
I can't help but circle back to my questions: Did I make a difference? What kind of difference? Some of it was academic, but I like to think that the most important difference I made with these two kids was demonstrating that someone cared how well they did in school and in life. That, for me, rates higher than any standardized test.
If you have an hour that you'd like to spend making that kind of difference for a child, won't you join us? Go here to see how you can be one in a million!
--Alan Witchey, director, Volunteer Center, United Way of Central Indiana
Aug/111
Vic: empty-nester engineer welcomes mentoring for ‘high probability of success’
Some empty-nesters look forward to spending more time on their own hobbies and interests. Not Vic Andrade.
When his son got married and his daughter started med school, Vic realized he missed being a parent. He especially missed evenings of helping with math homework and teaching life skills.
So when his daughter suggested Vic mentor a high school student with college aspirations through Starfish Initiative, a United Way agency, he took her up on the idea.
Matched with 15-year-old George, who wants to be an engineer too, Vic spent the first year working on their relationship. They played Frisbee golf, built and launched rockets, paddled on the canal and made root beer together.
This year, they are shifting their attention to academics, focusing on George's class ranking and grade point average to get him into college and preparing him for success in engineering school.
Vic says he enjoys the mentor relationship "because it's personal, and it's highly probable to be successful" with George graduating from college and becoming an engineer.
Since they meet once a week at the Pike Library, WISH TV's Joy Dumandan (right) chose to interview them there for the United Way special about volunteer opportunities. In this picture, she and videographer Jarod Kerfoot (left) discuss with Vic and George how they'll put the story together.
Look for it Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m. on WISH TV 8 during a station break.
We hope it's "highly probable" to inspire you to volunteer too!
--Mary Kinney, public/media relations director, United Way of Central Indiana
Aug/110
Cindy: a volunteer who’ll make you want to shred your own excuses
Would you like to volunteer, but seem to be stuck creating the list of why you CAN'T do it?
If so, you might want to watch the story WTHR's John Stehr and videographer Bill Ditton are producing about a 16-year-old Hendricks County volunteer, Cindy Stanton.
Cindy decided that children were not thinking about reading like she did, as exciting adventures. So she set out to change that by writing and publishing her own books, then taking the time to read them to children in her county. She even wrote a grant to United Way's Youth as Resources to make her dream a reality.
You can meet Cindy on Sept. 6 at 7:30 p.m. during a station break on WTHR Channel 13. It's part of the local television stations' commitment to inspire more volunteers to step up through United Way to be part of the change they want to see in education.
Here, John is interviewing Cindy at the Avon-Washington Township Library where she did one of her many read-alouds. Reading to children helps them become better readers, better students and ultimately have the building block for better lives.
As for that list of why you haven't started volunteering yet? I predict it will end up in the shredder, once you see what Cindy's doing!
--Mary Kinney, public/media relations director, United Way
