Near her U-M office at East Liberty and South State streets, Grace Hsia sees the homeless outside Starbucks, in the alley near CVS, in front of Amer’s Mediterranean Deli, and at the intersection of Liberty and Thompson.
more information
- U-M United Way campaign website
- Send question by email to uwquestions@umich.edu
Hsia, project intermediate manager with the Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy, is targeting her first annual gift to United Way specifically to the Robert J. Delonis Center, part of the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County. She says chronically homeless people benefit from its programs, which include teaching job skills.
“Not only am I going to be helping others in the community but I feel uplifted as well, so that is amazing,” she says. “I am exhilarated, happy and thankful to be able to work at the university and use some of my resources to help others.”
The university’s 2014 United Way employee giving campaign, the largest among all Big Ten universities, is underway with a $1.55 million goal. Like Hsia, other U-M employees say it feels good to give to United Way to support charitable activities — and that the donation can be even more satisfying when people are helping an agency that they personally know is meeting a crucial community need.
Jim Kosteva, director of community relations, says U-M United Way campaign organizers have for 20 years offered employee contributors the opportunity to designate where their gifts are directed.
“University staff are a caring and active population with active commitment and involvement with a number of health and human services causes throughout southeast Michigan and even northern Ohio, that are near and dear to them,” Kosteva says.
But he stresses that general, unspecified contributions also are meaningful.
“Contributors would also be wise to consider their respective United Way community investment funds because these funds are locally controlled and directed toward meeting the most pressing health and human service needs in their respective communities,” Kosteva says.
Donors can make contributions through payroll deductions spread out over a period as long as a year, or through a one-sum check or donation using a credit or debit card.
Hsia says spreading her $1,000 donation over monthly payments of $83.33 makes it easy to contribute, while she also pays her own living expenses and pays off student loans. “There’s a convenience factor which is amazing, and I’m able to do some good,” she says.
Longtime United Way donor Susan Fielder, executive assistant senior in the Ambulatory Care Administration, recalls volunteering with friends at the Corner Health Center in Ypsilanti. She saw rows and rows of folders assigned to clients who had received help, from parent education to health-related services.
“You can read statistics of how the United Way agencies help our community, but touching those folders, even for a minute, is a vivid realization of how important it is for all of us who have the financial resources to invest in the non-profits supported by the United Way,” Fielder says. The Corner Health Center is one of the agencies she designates to receive a portion of her annual donation.
David Michener, associate curator of Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, is a regular contributor and also his unit’s United Way volunteer coordinator. “I designate 100 percent to Planned Parenthood out of a sense of social responsibility,” he says, adding he supports its family planning roles.
“I designate funds since United Way has to be a broad umbrella,” he adds. “The overall reach of United Way strongly appeals to me.”
Employees can make pledges via the faculty and staff page under announcements on Wolverine Access.
The campaign kicked off Oct. 6 by reaching out to U-M staff through email and campus mail. It runs through Dec. 31.
