United Way kicks off fundraiser campaign
By BRETT DUNLAP, bdunlap@newsandsentinel.comPARKERSBURG - With an understanding that people can accomplish many things if given the right support, the United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley kicked off its 2008-2009 fundraising campaign Wednesday.
Businessmen, community leaders, United Way representatives and others gathered at Caesar's Restaurant for breakfast to get this year's campaign under way. Participants were given packets to take with them to area businesses and others to gather support.
''This morning we are going to be embarking on the Mid-Ohio Valley's single largest fundraising campaign for health and human service agencies,'' said Joyce Mather, executive director of the United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley. ''I am really thrilled the United Way holds that honor. ''Our campaign volunteers will start calling on businesses today throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley.''
This is the United Way's 84th year, Mather said.
''We started in 1924 and we have been impacting lives for a long, long long time,'' she said. ''When you think of things that have been around for 84 years, there probably aren't many things still out there. We are really thrilled we have been here and been able to support the programs and agencies that truly better our quality of life. These are exciting times for the United Way Alliance.''
This year's campaign goal is $750,000, said Rick Gant, incoming campaign chairman.
The United Way will go to corporate firms, family foundations, professionals, unions, small businesses, receiving agencies and others for funding support, he said.
''The one I am most proud of is the agency division,'' Gant said. ''They receive money from our donations and they also support what we do. We are very pleased with the effort they put into working with our volunteer agencies and helping out with everything they do. We are looking forward to a good campaign.''
The United Way's continued support has made a lasting impact on the lives of many people, said Dale Musgrave, the Scout executive for the Allohak Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts are one of the agencies served by the United Way.
Musgrave said to imagine a group of boys sitting around a picnic table working on a project with a camp counselor, then to imagine a boy with a disability coming to join them walking in on crutches. The counselor invites him to join in, but the boy has fallen down. The counselor helps him up, but the boy wants to show he can take care of himself. To prove this, he throws his crutches aside, falls down again, props himself up, walks over on his hands, does a hand pump and with a massive shove launches himself onto the picnic table.
''He leans to the camp counselor and says, 'I can do anything, I am a Boy Scout,''' Musgrave said. ''That is what we do in Boy Scouts. We take kids and bring them into our program and we teach them they can do anything they put their minds to.''
Musgrave talked about how each scout is expected to follow the guideline of the Scout Oath in duty to God and their country, to be physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight as well as each point of the Scout Law to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. When a boy joins Scouting, they learn skills they can use throughout their lives, begin an interest in something that will develop into a lifelong love of the outdoors or get them interested in something that will start a career path.
''Those are admirable qualities we want for all of our children,'' Musgrave said. ''We can't teach kids that if they don't join Scouting and they can't join Scouting if we don't have the support of groups like the United Way.''
He held up a Scout uniform and said as the boy develops skills and earns merit badges, the boy and the person he will become starts to take shape.
''The United Way Campaign is a lot like that, because as this campaign is launching the community is kind of a blank slate,'' Musgrave said. ''We don't know what our community is going to look like, but because of the United Way we know our community will begin to take shape and will become a better place for all of us.''
