The ping of a baseball bat from the diamond below punctuated the air at Sewell-Thomas Stadium as approximately 120 people gathered in the .525 Club for the 2018 UA United Way Campaign Kickoff on Oct. 11. The event brought together University and United Way of West Alabama officials to share the plan for another successful campaign.
Intercollegiate Athletics, campaign host, is challenging everyone to go for a giving championship by supporting the United Way and its partner agencies. The goal for 2018 is $385,000.
The 2018 theme — Champions United: A Tradition of Caring, Serving, and Giving — is fitting not only for this year’s hosts, but also for the campus community as a whole, which has collectively led the SEC in the percentage of employees contributing to local United Way campaigns for many years.
Campaign co-chair Marie Robbins, senior associate athletics director, outlined a simple plan for attaining the 2018 financial goal. “In athletics, we’re about winning championships, and having a goal and a plan to get there,” said Robbins. “Here’s our plan to get there, and that is to increase the participation percentage across the entire campus.”
Robbins said that UA currently hovers around a 47 percent participation rate, and that increasing that number — even with giving amounts that equate to skipping going out for lunch and instead giving that $10 to the United Way — will help achieve the Champions United goal.
“United Way provides an opportunity for us to be gracious to our community,” said UA President Stuart R. Bell. “… United Way is such a powerful way for us as a team, as an entire University, to come together and say this is our heart, this is how we feel, and here’s the impact that we want to have in the West Alabama region.”
Jordan Plaster, chair of the overall UWWA campaign, said that one in four people has used services provided by partner agencies. He told his personal story of the services he received as a young boy facing the challenge of learning how to talk while having been born with a 75 percent hearing deficiency.
“I had to go every Thursday afternoon to an Easter Seals office,” said Plaster. “They worked with me to basically teach me how to talk. They taught me how to say the correct pronunciation for my hometown, Autaugaville. … They taught me all kinds of stuff. Mostly they taught me these three things: about caring about people, about serving and about giving. They worked with me every week for nine years. Without that, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Contrary to the bleak outlook the doctor gave Plaster’s mother, Plaster went on to graduate from high school and to earn a degree from The University of Alabama. He said that he graduated on a Saturday, went to work the following Monday, and has been working in the financial services industry ever since — for 39 years.
Using an observation about UA’s rowing team, Robbins predicted a championship to celebrate in November if all row in the same direction to get to the finish line — the goal. “Let’s go win a championship!” she said.
The United Way of West Alabama has 26 partner agencies and plays a vital role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Partner agencies from Bibb, Fayette, Green, Hale, Lamar, Marengo, Pickens, Sumter and Tuscaloosa counties provide a variety of education, income-related, health and emergency-response programs to citizens throughout West Alabama. For more information about United Way of West Alabama, visit uwwa.org.
For information about the UA United Way Campaign, contact Carol Agomo, Division of Community Affairs, at community.affairs@ua.edu or at 205-348-7405.