MORGANTOWN — The United Way of Monongalia and Preston Counties — the outreach organization that helps pay heating bills in the summer while making sure youngsters from needy homes have enough to eat on weekends — is again asking for your dollars.
A total of $1,480,000, in fact.
That’s the goal of the 2019 campaign, which organizers announced Tuesday morning at Mon Health Conference Center.
About 100 people, all of whom oversee United Way campaigns in their work places came out for a breakfast buffet that was just as much about altruism as it was eggs and bacon.
The morning also featured previews of radio and video spots for the campaign, along with remarks from Eddie Campbell Jr., Monongalia’s newly hired superintendent of schools.
When he stepped to the microphone, Andy Walls, the 2019 chairman, remembered his first encounter with United Way, which ties in with its “Change starts here” theme.
Said recollection goes back more than 30 years, when Walls, the owner of Morgantown Printing and Binding, was hired for his first professional job.
He had been employed for less than two weeks when he was summoned to a supervisor’s office.
“I just figured I was in trouble,” he said.
As it turned out, that supervisor ran the company campaign for United Way. And she was asking Walls to contribute $5 from his salary.
Except, he said, it didn’t necessarily seem like a request.
“I was like, ‘You’re doing it,’” Walls said, while the audience laughed appreciatively.
That supervisor also told him everything that United Way does.
She told him that every dollar taken in stays local.
He kicked in the fiver without thinking.
In today’s economy, he said, donations are no longer that easy: That’s why this year’s mark is scaled down from the $1.5 goal of the 2018 outing.
That campaign made goal and then some, but it struggled. A Hail Mary, and lots of working on the phones, pushed it past the mark — barely.
“We think this year’s goal is a realistic goal that we can meet and exceed,” Walls said.
The campaign officially begins Sept. 11.
It literally adds up, United Way CEO Brandi Helms said.
Member agencies across the two counties helped 32,000 people with various fiscal matters and other needs.
Those same agencies distributed $20,000 to households needing help with heating bills.
Nearly 11,000 mental health and legal support sessions were provided for victims of abuse and neglect.
About 2,000 coats were collected for needy children by volunteers.
A total of 42,940 weekend food packs were also prepared for youngsters in needy homes, Helms said.
Dollars help, the CEO said. But caring people make for a good resource as well.
“It isn’t always about the giving,” she said.
“It’s about the volunteering.”
