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United Way elects new members

• The United Way of Southwest Georgia chooses new members and hands out fundraising awards Monday at its annual meeting.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — The United Way of Southwest Georgia met its $1.5 million fundraising goal for 2007, the charity announced Monday at its annual meeting after electing new board members for the organization.

While 2006-2007 Campaign Chair Dan McCarthy was pleased with the achievement, he said “there is still an untapped potential for Albany to give more to the United Way.

“We need to be doing more than that,” he said about the fundraising drive’s goal. “Our agencies are continuing to grow ... and we need to be doing more for them.”

The agency has set its fundraising goal at $1.5 million for the last several years, but hadn’t met the goal until 2006, he said. In his speech, McCarthy credited an editorial in The Albany Herald during January with helping the United Way to reach the goal again for 2007.

“I think that had a major change that came along after that,” he said.

The funds raised will go to help support the United Way’s 34 partner agencies in various capacities, he said. The United Way itself is a volunteer- driven organization, McCarthy pointed out.

Some of the agencies the United Way helps to support are the Boys & Girls Clubs of Albany, the Salvation Army, the Liberty House, Girls Incorporated of Albany and the SOWEGA Council on Aging.

While many of its 34 partners have their own fundraisers, “all of them depend on secondary funding to make it work,” he said.

Because many Southwest Georgians have economic concerns, combined with the fact that the United Way faced some organizational restructuring challenges of its own after longtime head Wayne Mehearg died, meeting the $1.5 million goal was an impressive achievement, he said.

“With the economic conditions in the community and in the state, I think we did incredibly well,” he said.

Also at the luncheon, McCarthy handed out several awards, including: most total donations collected by a company corporately and individually, Procter & Gamble Paper Products Co.; greatest donation amount increase in employee giving, Procter & Gamble; and greatest percentage increase in employee giving, NAPA Distribution Center.

Also honored were the top ten businesses in total combined donations, top ten businesses in total per capita employee donations and 44 businesses that increased in their employee-giving by any amount.

At the beginning of the luncheon, members of the United Way appointed several new board members. The new board members are: Cynthia Young of Bank of America, Miles Espy of Draffin & Tucker, Garrett Tukes of Publix, Dexter Long of Wal-Mart and Rachelle Scott of P&G.

The organization’s board typically meets in the summer to set a goal for its annual fundraising campaign, which generally runs from September through November, though it accepts donations after the cutoff date, McCarthy said.

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