To the Editor:
The United Fund of Switzerland County would like to thank Vevay Newspapers and especially Pat Lanman for devoting his editorial of October 26th to the United Fund.
Pat was able to put our five year effort in perspective in the community setting and remind all of the United Fund’s volunteers that their hard work and perseverance is noticed and appreciated by the community.
As Pat said, the meeting held on the 21st was both our Annual Report and Campaign Kickoff. Our campaign goal for this year is $100,000. As in past years this is not going to be an easy goal to achieve but this year we are going to try to reach more members of the community by making our campaign brochures and information about our organization more readily available. This is not an easy task since, as Pat pointed out, the United Fund in our county consists of all volunteers who are working full time.
I do feel that it is reasonable and possible to achieve our goal this year if more people in the community would take an active part in supporting us. I am sure that all of us are touched in some manner by at least one of the programs supported by the United Fund. Pat eloquently gave examples in his editorial and our 2006 Campaign Brochure goes into more detail identifying and describing the most recent grants.
Pat also gave an example of the potential of giving $1 a week by 1,000 people would generate $56,000 in one year. Well, I would like to suggest being more aggressive – that 1,000 working families giving up one soft drink or a few smokes a day would generate about $260,000 a year. Think about it, such a small sacrifice by one family member would, with the continued support of our current corporate sponsors and payroll deduction givers, generate about $360,000 for fulfilling our mission of “Improving the quality of life for residents of Switzerland County.” That thought is breathtaking but in rethinking the logic it is certainly possible.
Thanks to all of you for supporting the United Fund of Switzerland County in the past and with your continued support and with the additional support of others in the community, we would be able to support even more projects and even better fulfill our motto of “Local people using local funds to fund local projects.”
Fred Stave, President
United Fund of Switzerland County