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.
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.
posted by Bob Levey's United Way at
8:22 AM
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