Gloria Pace King, United Way Central Carolinas

    The Charlotte Rotary Club extended a warm welcome to Gloria Pace King, Executive Director of the United Way of Central Carolinas. Gloria is a native “buckeye” and worked for United Way in Cleveland, Ohio before coming to Charlotte in 1994.  Gloria began her remarks by recognizing several Rotary Club members who play significant roles with the United Way, including Don Steger, former Board Chairman, Anthony Fox, current Board Chairman and Mary Mack, who will head up the 2003 Regional United Way Campaign.

     Gloria gave tribute to Charlotte as “one of the most giving and caring communities in this country”, and credited Charlotte’s people for being the community’s greatest resource.  She announced this year’s United Way Campaign goal is $39M for the four county area. When Gloria first arrived in 1994, the campaign raised $18M.  The community has more than doubled its giving in the past seven years.  As evidence of that growth, Gloria cited the growth in donors who give $10,000 or more.  In 1994, there were only 43 donors in this category; last year 460 people gave at this level, and the goal for this year is 500 donors.

     Gloria reflected on the past successes by noting that the United Way had experienced double-digit increases in contributions for the four-year period from 1996-2000.   But she indicated that last fall, United Way knew it was going to be a different year because of the economy, and that was before the impact of September 11.  Last year’s campaign set a goal of 3% increase, which Charlotte exceeded. But even with that increase, it was the worst year ever for the 98 partner agencies.  Most of them had their funding reduced because of the impact of designated giving which increased from 18% in 2000 to 27% in 2001.  Gloria indicated that the United Way had learned some valuable lessons from that experience-the biggest one being that the Donor Choice doesn’t work and doesn’t raise more money for community needs.  This year the campaign is actively promoting support for the Community Care Fund so that contributions will benefit all the agencies in this community.  As Gloria pointed out, even though we are a growing and prosperous community, the needs are still great, particularly given the double impact of 9/11 and the economic slowdown.

     In closing, Gloria challenged us with a question: “If there was no United Way, who would provide the safety net for the community?”  Her answer was that there is really no other organization or group that could take on this task.

     Guests & Visitors - Randall Groves; Invocation - Lou Solomon; Club Education - Erskine Harkey

     Head Table: Mark Schaffner, Pam Dittloff, Anthony Fox, and John Nicolay.

     Special Music - Jonathan Hare, NYC Policeman and student at the Manhattan School of Music.

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POWELL'S
OBSERVATIONS

• Jeff Triplette’s number is 42 as he referees games in the NFL.

• Thomas Moore recently spoke at gatherings in Dublin and Edenborough.

• Rusty Brink was listed in  “Who’s Who” in Health Care by the Business Journal.

• David Zimmerman will be batchin’ it for the     next nine months as wife Adja and sons Carl and Alex will be living in Germany with the kids’ grandparents.

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CLUB EDUCATION

     Several things have changed in regard to our Rotary CLASSIFICATIONS.  Recent changes have increased the number within each classification from two to five.

     If a Club has 50 or more members, that Club can elect to have up to 10% in each classification.  In our Club, we have elected to stay with the maximum of five.

     Classification is determined by the activity or service, rather than by the title held.

     There are now only two categories of members, Active and Honorary.  The Senior Active category familiar to many of us has been eliminated.

     Article V, Section 3 states: A Club shall be comprised of active members who are adult persons of good character and good business and professional reputation.

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