What United Way of the National Capital Area Means to Me

The full name is “United Way of the National Capital Area.”

Most people focus on the first two words. I like to focus on the final three.

To me, the genius of UWNCA is the way it jumps borders. Our metropolitan area is hammered together—two states, one major city, several smaller ones, several counties. Sometimes, the various pieces don’t look much like one another, and all too often, they don’t communicate very well with one another.

But the social problems of our area spread across the entire length and breadth of it. If we want to stamp out child obesity, for example, we’d be foolish to try to do it only in the District of Columbia. UWNCA provides the platform--and the expertise—to carry the fight to every jurisdiction and every child.

By giving to United Way each year, I’m saying: “I don’t want to aim small. I want to aim at real solutions to real problems. I don’t want to pretend that problems end at borders or at the banks of a river. They spill across them. So my money has to do the same.”

UWNCA is the only local organization that approaches social change in this way. It does so effectively. It does so imaginatively. And it has done so for more than 35 years in its current form.

I can and do give to smaller, more targeted organizations. But I will always give to UWNCA because it goes 360 degrees.

The issues in our community do, too.

The Need is Still Unmet

At 53, Paul Little has been through many Schools of Hard Knocks.

He dropped out of the eighth grade to help support his mother and six younger siblings. He sold drugs on street corners. He worked construction. He went to prison. He’s now unemployed and living in a shelter for recovering addicts and alcoholics.

And he’s back in school.

One recent morning, Little and 16 other students were wrestling with a math problem:
Janet owes $1,800. She agrees to pay $300 on the first of the month and $150 on the first of each succeeding month. How many months will it take her to pay off the loan?
Little tinkered with a pencil as instructor Johann Ducharme roamed the classroom, helping where help was needed.

Little built a few fractions. He did some subtraction. Triumphantly, he wrote down the figure “11” and circled it.

He smiled.

The scene was the downtown Washington headquarters of Catholic Charities, one of the oldest social services organizations in the metropolitan area. The GED Prep class that Paul Little is taking is one of dozens of programs that Catholic Charities has run in the community for more than 80 years.

Donors to United Way of the National Capital Area supply about eight percent of Catholic Charities’ annual budget, or about $375,000 during the current fiscal year, according to President and CEO Ed Orzechowski.

“United Way is an extremely important relationship for us,” Orzechowski said. The need for support from United Way donors (and other donors) has never been greater, according to Orzechowski and Carol Shannon, Executive Director of the Catholic Charities Foundation. “We are serving what I call The New Poor,” said Orzechowski.

These are people who have never needed or sought help before.

“All of a sudden, they’ve lost their home,” Orzechowski said. “Then a spiraling effect starts to happen. The crush of need is so high. We don’t have the staff to handle it.”

Orzechowski and his organization often talk about The Cry Factor. First-time visitors to Catholic Charities’ eight family centers often weep when they first seek help. “They’re embarrassed,” said Shannon. “Their families are truly suffering.”

Catholic Charities has seen a 36 percent increase in applications for help since the recession started to surge, Orzechowski said. The organization serves people from 80 countries, offering everything from emergency food, to loans that will keep utilities from being cut off, to bankruptcy advice from a squadron of attorneys (many of them volunteers).

The results are not perfect. Johann Ducharme, the GED instructor, estimates that no more than one-third of his students will pass the GED exam. “That’s a discouragement,” Ducharme admits. But one-third is better than none.

For Paul Little, GED training is a lifeline he knows he should have grabbed decades earlier. “Any job you try to get these days, you need a GED,” he said. “You want to work at McDonalds, the first thing they ask you is, ‘Do you have a GED?’“

If Catholic Charities ever got a surge of donations from United Way? “We’d hire the staff we need,” said Ed Orzechowski. “The need is still huge. The need is still unmet."

He’s a Feisty Little Guy—Two Years Old and Full of Steam

He’s a feisty little guy—two years old and full of steam. He smiles. He waves. He wants to show you the book he’s carrying. His T-shirt says it all. BIG TROUBLE IN A LITTLE SHIRT, the front of it says.

But the bigger trouble happened to his mother. She was a teenager when Big Trouble was conceived. Perhaps because of abuse, perhaps because of neglect, she was referred to St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home in Hyattsville. There, she got appropriate pre-natal care and had a safe place to live before and after Big Trouble was born.

Teenage pregnancies have always been a major social problem, but no agency anywhere has done as much to ease the situation—for both mother and child—as St. Ann’s.
The home celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2010. It was chartered by no less than Abraham Lincoln, in 1863. It offers about 20,000 days of care each year across four programs—children’s residential, teen mothers and babies, community child care and a transitional home for older single mothers who are working toward self-sufficiency.

United Way of the National Capital Area has been a partner of St. Ann’s for decades. Although UWNCA donors provide only about six percent of St. Ann’s annual non-foundation charity dollars, United Way support is “critical,” said Sister Mary Bader, St. Ann’s CEO.

Indeed, 100 yards before you arrive at St. Ann’s front door, you see a familiar red and white sign that says, UNITED WAY—WORKING HERE.
“There’s always a gap,” said Lisa Sheehan, St. Ann’s director of development. “United Way helps us make it up.”

Once upon a time, Sister Mary said, teenage pregnancy was treated in only one way—by quarantining the mother and unborn child and semi-pretending that the pregnancy never happened.

In today’s Washington area, she said, “all of our teenage Moms are victims of poverty.” That can cause families to spiral into drug and alcohol abuse—which increases the likelihood that young girls will lack supervision and self-esteem and become sexually active. Once pregnant, these teenagers often leave school—and only later discover how difficult it is to get a job without an education.

As a result, St. Ann’s runs—and has always run—a full-service high school. While their children are attending day care elsewhere at St. Ann’s, teenage mothers and mothers-to-be are cracking the books. On one recent morning, a music teacher was showing a teenage mother how to navigate the Internet in search of a job. A math teacher was planning lessons. In an English class down the hall, one young mother was reading aloud from a novel.

If United Way donors gave more money, Sister Mary said she’d probably spend it on “unfunded pregnant girls who aren’t referred here through county or city agencies.” She hears from such mothers-to-be “every single day,” Sister Mary said. It’s a testament to how long St. Ann’s has helped such young people, and how well.