Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Time for rediscovery: United Way funds are a means to a much more noble end

This morning the United Way kicked off its annual campaign with an ambitious and record fundraising goal in front of a crowd of over 1,200 at the Aberdeen Pavilion at Lansdowne Park.

And if you read Susan Sherring’s column last Friday you will know this year’s campaign chairman is James McCracken, a director with the Ottawa Catholic School Board, who sees first-hand some of the despair and hurt that is prevalent in our community — on the faces and from the stories of the kids who walk through his schools daily.

This year’s campaign theme is “Rediscover Community,” which is truly appropriate at this time in our city’s history.

While we have been spared the worst of the recession through the stable employment base of our federal bureaucracy, along with the other orders of government and a host of para-public institutions, there are many folks — often unseen — who are out of work or living paycheque to paycheque and fearful for their own job prospects.

The toll that this uncertainty and anxiety can take on families is tremendous.

In a conversation with United Way President Michael Allen yesterday he noted the demand on several partners and agencies they fund, such as counselling services, homeless shelters and food banks, has been unprecedented over the past year.

Meanwhile, for those of us who have been fortunate to survive and perhaps even thrive over the past year or so, the recession has still impacted us in small and sometimes trivial ways which, when taken together, have resulted in us saving more, donating less and yes, at times, cocooning in the safety our own houses and daily routines. Hence the need to rediscover our community.

The United Way now partners with and/or directly funds almost 200 other agencies in our region that deliver a range of services from addiction counselling to seniors to support to immigrant settlement to youth job training.

Basically, if there is a need out there, chances are the United Way is involved at some level.

The other marked change, a transformation if you will, is how the United Way measures its success. Sure this year’s goal is ambitious (with kudos to our federal public servants who aim to raise $20.5 million to be split proportionately between Ottawa and Gatineau), but the money is only a means to a much more noble end.

The end game is measuring impact by the lives that are changed for the better. By filling gaps and meeting needs. And by moving folks, when possible, from dependency to sufficiency, from despair to hope and from the shadows of loneliness and scorn to the light of being embraced and engaged as full members of our city.

So this scribe asks you to rediscover your community and give. But don’t take my word for it, do your own homework. A new innovation on display at this morning’s breakfast was the deployment of a nifty little technology known as “Overlay TV” on the United Way website (unitedwayottawa.ca) that allows potential donors to hear personal stories of the impact of key agencies in our community. You can even share your own story via webcam and upload it.

Now that’s rediscovering community.