By Kris Ann Piazza
Buffalo, NY – The first time I ever heard the name United Way was when I was nine. My mother was proudly showing me her paycheck and explaining how important it was to give to organizations that help people. I remember thinking that she could have given me the money instead because I really needed a bike.
Many years later, my supervisor volunteered my time to the United Way for their 2000 annual fundraising campaign. I wasn't thrilled, but how do you deny interest in such a paragon community organization? How do you say no thanks without escaping the guilt-ridden consequences of refusing the opportunity to help people less fortunate than yourself?
You don't.
I went.
It's not as if I had anything against the United Way, but I had experienced a rough year or two myself and believed that any extra dollars might best benefit my own rainy days. It wasn't until I was on a United Way account call that I realized the significance of my shortsightedness. I was listening to the director of Crisis Services describe the scope of programs her agency provided when her words reached through the connection like an unexpected blow. I wasn't prepared for it, but suddenly I was face to face with my own vulnerability.
More than 20 years earlier a spinal cord injury at the age of 12 had shattered my life, and I couldn't seem to put the pieces back together again. I was paralyzed from the neck down, unable to dress or bathe myself and angry at the universe for going on as if no one understood that my world had tilted on its axis when they weren't paying attention.
It was during that time that I reached out to the Crisis Services' anonymous hotline for something I was afraid to ask my family for. I needed someone to let me be angry, someone to listen, and someone who wouldn't be hurt if I expressed my pain and uncertainty.
The United Way funded that program. I didn't know that when I used the service, nor was I aware of it when the help my anonymous counselors' gave me carried me through adolescence, into young womanhood and throughout my first job. The United Way was simply there, quietly supportive, asking nothing - giving everything.
I often wonder if I would have achieved the level of personal and professional success I enjoy today if I hadn't had the emotional outlet I had access to all those years ago. What would've happened if my single-parent mother had held those precious extra dollars instead of generously sharing them with the United Way? What if she had designated her charitable gift to a particular agency? Ultimately she simply gave from her heart because people needed help and she was in a position to give it, trusting the United Way to direct her donation where the need was greatest. Eventually her return on investment was immeasurable. Giving to Community Care works exactly like that, improving the United Way's ability to help our community's neediest people while eliminating the limitations designated dollars bring.
An estimated $26 million dollars is necessary to meet the health and human service needs of our community in 2005. It's not enough to simply do our part anymore in light of such a staggering number. Every time we fail to raise the bar on our own giving, each time we ignore the opportunity to inspire our colleagues to do the same, is another year we lose valuable people to poverty, illness and lost hope.
I give to Community Care instead of designating to personal interests because I know this campaign is not about just me. It's about the people around me who are dreaming of what could be. I'm thriving today because others felt the same way and gave selflessly to the United Way when I was a young girl.
Take the initiative to strengthen your own giving, excite your colleagues about doing the same, by remembering what the annual United Way campaign is for: energizing lives. Get excited about giving because what the United Way does with your ordinary gift through Community Care is making extraordinary things happen: Twenty years ago, I needed the United Way. Today, the United Way needs me.