As people respond generously to the devastation on the Gulf Coast wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, Marlene Kowalski-Braun hopes people in the Grand Valley community don't forget about ongoing needs in our local communities.
Kowalski-Braun is the co-chair of this year's annual United Way campaign, which runs October 3-14. She said she hopes people will support both.
"We do need to give to the hurricane relief. There are immense needs that I think as a community we need to address," Kowalski-Braun said. "But we need to realize that local needs will remain the same."
Kowalski-Braun is the director of the Women's Center. She has been Grand Valley's United Way campaign co-chair for the past five years, but she started working with United Way seven years ago as a loaned executive.
"I took the role very seriously, but also I felt privileged to be representing the institution in the community in that way," she said. "Before that, it was just about giving once a year through payroll deduction. I think what the loaned executive experience allowed me to do was to have a personal look at how United Way changes lives."
In that role, Kowalski-Braun visited agencies and met clients, interacting with the people who were impacted by the funds raised. She said that experience was life-changing.
"I think one of the things that sometimes gets lost when people talk about United Way agencies is they talk about some of the bigger agencies like the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army and they do fabulous work. But what really appealed to me were the grass-roots organizations, community organizations, organizations that respond to very specific needs that also benefit from United Way.
In fact, those small agencies are even more dependent on United Way than the large ones.
"When you think about a small agency, they don't nearly have the resources or personnel or dollars to run fund development campaigns in the way large nonprofits do," Kowalski-Braun said. "In my view, when you think about local citizens stepping up and making a difference, I think the United Way supports that. These grass-roots groups could not exist without the dollars they receive through the annual campaign.
"I respect the fact that people have personal agencies that have touched their lives in meaningful ways," Kowalski-Braun said. "But what I also recognize is that there are vast community needs that may never get attention based on the specific agency that I give to."
For example, she said, as the economy has been hit over the last couple of years, United Way's 2-1-1 number has received an increasing number of calls for basic needs like shelter, clothing, food, and utility assistance.
Kowalski-Braun said she hopes to see increased participation in the campaign this year.
"I'm proud to be part of an institution that has the kind of history of giving that Grand Valley has," Kowalski-Braun said. "But as the institution has grown, our percentage of participation has gotten smaller. What that says to me is not that we're less giving people than we've been, but as we get larger it's really important to slow down and share with people the priority that we place on giving to our local community."
