A chance to make a difference

Years ago, an old friend put things in perspective.
The United Way campaign, he said, is an opportunity.
At first, his words sounded puzzling.
But he went on to explain.
You see, he said, I’m not a rich guy, just another guy punching a clock and making an hourly wage.
If I were a rich guy, he said, I could be a philanthropist. I could make big things happen. I could give back to my community. I could be that guy the building is named for, the one people will remember.
But I’m not a rich guy, he said. So what the annual United Way campaign gives me is an opportunity, an opportunity to be a big guy in a little way, an opportunity to give back to my community, supporting things that will never have my name on them but that wouldn’t exist without the help of lots of little guys like me.
If you’ve never thought of the United Way campaign that way, we suggest you should.
It’s the purest example of the old expression “many hands make light work” that you’ll ever find.
It relies not on a handful of rich donors but upon broad participation by the entire community, each giving what he or she can give comfortably, making light work of the challenges before us.
The success of each year’s campaign is measured only in part by whether it reaches or falls short of its goal. A better measure is the number of individual donors, the number of people who take advantage of the opportunity our old friend was talking about years ago.
Will you be among those donors this year? We hope so. After all, a unique opportunity is knocking. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]