When the lights went down in Hulman Center and the several hundred people who attended Monday night’s United Way annual meeting had gone home, two words still hung in the air.
“Community spirit.”
The words were spoken during the meeting’s closing remarks by Rick Burger, president of the board of the United Way of the Wabash Valley. They defined perfectly what the agency’s 2009 fundraising campaign continued to reveal about the people of its member communities.
The big news that came out of Monday’s meeting was not that the agency narrowly missed its $1.8 million fundraising goal for the year. It was that, in these hard economic times, it got as close as it did.
The United Way raised $1,748,872 for the year, just $51,000 shy of the campaign goal. Given the state of the economy and the difficulty all charitable organizations are experiencing, the result was truly remarkable.
This achievement is once again a grand testament to the depth of community commitment to the less fortunate, the perceived effectiveness of the dozens of agencies that receive United Way funds, and the strong reputation of the fund-raising organization itself.
In two words, “community spirit.”
There were thousands of volunteers and contributors that made this year’s campaign such a success, but special recognition must go to those who fronted the organization during a challenging year. Leading the charge were United Way of the Wabash Valley Executive Director Troy Fears, board president Burger of Duke Energy, and campaign co-chairs Marla Flowers and Gary Morris of Clabber Girl Inc. For Flowers and Morris, it was their second consecutive year as campaign co-chairs
It is hard to imagine any group could demonstrate more “community spirit” than this group did. Their commitment to the cause was relentless, their energy contagious. We applaud their effort as well as their results.
While corporate contributions and employee checkoffs are the foundation of any campaign, a number of special events — including United Day for United Way and Power of the Purse — helped keep the spirit alive and the cause in the forefront of people’s minds.
When times are tough, the need for services provided by United Way agencies is greater than ever. In recent years, more and more people have found it necessary to rely on one or more of the service organizations the agency funds. The performance of the fundraising campaign means these service agencies, as they have so ably in the past, will be able to assist those in need.
Today, we salute the United Way of the Wabash Valley, its volunteers, service agencies, and generous donors for displaying incredible “community spirit” during the 2009 campaign.
