Newsletter - March 2017

United Way of Roanoke Valley

MARCH 2017

It started out as an idea at summer camp, when 12-year-old Annabelle Buyck, a student at Community School, was working on a screenprint of bears and came up with the idea of making stuffed animals to donate.

Community School has Friday Groups, which are full day elective classes that run for six weeks, and Annabelle designed a group called Home Bears as a class for students to learn how to sew.

She created a pattern, and funds for the supplies were donated by her brother Max, age 16, a student at Community High School, and from Emilie Temeles, a teacher at Community School whose daughter Abby (a former Community School student) works for Vermont Teddy Bear and was able to donate unused fabric.

After searching for places to donate the finished products, Annabelle came across the Rehousing Youth for Success in Education initiative and set the goal of making 32 bears to donate to homeless children.

“I am incredibly proud of our students.

What I love is that this is a two-fold

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Ruth Ann Hannah, former CS teacher, now substitute, leads a group of students on their sewing project for the Home Bears Class.

project: our students are learning an important skill but are also learning about the issue of homelessness in the Roanoke Valley, and seeing they can make a difference. I think we often see heros as people who become famous, who are starting major national and international programs, but the true difference comes in the every day actions of individuals,” says Katrina Hill, lead teacher of the class. She’s noticed that the student-led project has empowered Annabelle and her classmates, and that many of them have stepped up as leaders.

Katrina sums up the project with one of her favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great

Annabelle Buyck, whose idea it was to create the bears, works on sewing the face on her bear.

way.” She adds, “this is a small thing, but it may make a difference to one child, and that ripples, right?”

To learn more about RYSE or donate, visit www.uwrv.org/RYSE

facebook.com/UnitedWayofRoanokeValley twitter.com/UWRoanokeValley youtube.com/UWRV

325 Campbell Ave, SW Roanoke, VA 24016 Phone: (540) 777-4200 Fax: (540) 344-4304 www.uwrv.org

HOCKEY WITH HEART MINIMUM EFFORT Join us for UNITED WAY NIGHT with the Rail Yard Dawgs as they take on the Columbus Cottonmouths in their second to last home game of the season.Tickets are $13.50, with $3.50 of each ticket benefitting United Way of Roanoke Valley.

To purchase tickets, please visit http://bit.ly/UnitedWay032517.

MAXIMUM RETURN Have you filed your taxes yet? If so, great! If not, we know just the tool that will help make it easy for you.

MyFreeTaxes is a free, safe and easy way for anyone earning $64,000 or less to file state and federal taxes.

H&R Block and United Way have been providing free tax filing services online for federal and state taxes since 2009 and was introduced to the Roanoke Valley in 2016. MyFreeTaxes has helped more than 750,000 taxpayers claim every credit and deduction they deserve to maximize filers’ refunds and provide important opportunities for individuals and families to build financial stability. What’s even better is that 70% of MyFreeTaxes.com users file in under an hour. If online filing isn’t your game, you can also file your taxes in person at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites. To find the nearest location, visit MyFreeTaxes.com or call 1-855-MY-TX-HELP. Tax returns are due by April 18th.

IS YOUR CHILD READY FOR

Kindergarten?

Although the 2017-2018 school year is still several months away, local elementary schools are beginning to register children for Kindergarten. Any child who will be five years old by September 30, 2017 is able to enroll for Kindergarten this next fall. But

being old enough isn’t always the same thing as being ready.

Kindergarten readiness is important because research shows children who are ready for kindergarten are more likely to succeed in school and in life.

So how does a parent know if

their child is ready or not? Smart Beginnings of Greater Roanoke suggests parents think about the following types of readiness skills. Experts say that no single or simple factor determines whether a child is ready for kindergarten but if you have concerns, talk to your child’s preschool teacher or contact your local elementary school.

LEARNING AND THINKING SKILLS

MATH SKILLS

• Can your child identify how objects/pictures are the same and different?

• Can your child match and recognize basic colors and shapes?

• Can your child talk about recent events, and tell what happened first, next and last?

• Is your child curious about the world and interested in learning new things?

• Can your child count at least 10 objects?

• Does your child understand the concepts of “more” and “less?”

• Can your child sort a set of objects by size or length? (i.e. put blocks in order from tallest to shortest) • Can your child repeat a simple pattern? (Red, red, blue — red, red, blue)

READING AND WRITING SKILLS

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS

• Can your child pay attention and listen to a story for a short period of time?

• Can your child recognize letters of the alphabet and identify some beginning letter sounds?

• Can your child identify simple rhyming words?

• Can your child spell and write their first name?

• Can your child tell someone their name (first and last) and their age?

• Can your child take care of their own needs, such as toileting, washing hands and dressing?

• Is your child able to adjust to new situations without a parent being there?

• Does your child interact well with other children and adults?

For more information visit www.smartbeginningsroanoke.org/parents

For most of us, when we think of health, we think of it in terms of just visiting the doctor or dentist. Our health, however, starts much earlier than a visit to see a medical professional; it is impacted by our neighborhoods, our homes,

our jobs, even whether or not we have reliable transportation.

Inequities across class, race, and other divides are directly reflected in the health of our community, and in order to build a community where all are empowered to achieve and

sustain optimal health, we have to first understand the inequities that exist, and how we can work to support a more just and equitable community.

Earlier this month, we held the first of two sessions of Healthy Roanoke Valley Community Conversations, discussing the topic of Health Equity in the Roanoke

Valley. During the session, we screened excerpts from Unnatural Causes, a PBS documentary that addresses the question of whether or not inequality is making us sick. There was great conversation, personal story sharing, and lots of discussions about how health is tied to the distribution of resources, how racism is an added

We invite the community to join us for our next session, HRV Community Conversations: Racial and Social Justice and Health on Tuesday, March 7th from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm at The Grandin Theater, 1310 Grandin Road SW, Roanoke, VA 24015. Lunch will be provided; please register by March 5th to reserve your spot: http://bit.ly/2liHXHS.

health burden, how chronic stress can be deadly, and how the choices we make are shaped by the choices we have.

There to facilitate the session were Aisha Shillingford and Susan Naimark of Interaction Institute for Social Change with the event made possible by the DentaQuest Foundation.

r o t a n i d r o Co CAMPAIGN

SPOTLIGHT

We asked Candace Lucas of The Roanoke Times to share her experience as Employee Campaign Manager (ECM). Candace was nominated for the Campaign Coordinator Spotlight for her sincere dedication to the United Way mission, as well as to her colleagues at The Roanoke Times. She worked incredibly hard with her campaign team to make sure what they did was effective Candace Lucas in educating and inspiring their workforce on UWRV’s impact in the community, and made it an enjoyable team-buildling experience. Because of Candace’s dedication, the campaign was the best its been in years and The Roanoke Times raised more money in 2016 making them one of the Top 50 Most Generous Workplaces in the Roanoke Valley.

Tell us a little about your company, your role and the number of years you’ve served as United Way ECM. I recently had my one year anniversary working for The Roanoke Times as their HR Generalist. I was nominated to our internal United Way committee about six months ago to help create a team to engage the employees for our UW event week.

such a positive outcome for our community.

What do you enjoy about serving in this important role?

I didn’t realize such a positive impact our team would have on the employees which in turn created

Share an example of how you’ve volunteered or advocated for United Way of Roanoke Valley.

How did it make you feel?

During our first staff meeting, I

When and how did you first learn about United Way? Growing up watching football, with my dad, was probably the first time I learned about the United Way. The NFL has been in a long lasting relationship with the UW since 1973.

introduced the RYSE – Rehousing Youth for Success in Education program and the importance of advocating for our children in our community. This is an extremely important initiative the United Way has brought to the forefront because our children are our future.

Tell us about someone or something that inspires you to support United Way of Roanoke Valley.

Being a mother of two boys inspires me and also, being a past preschool teacher, I have

witnessed the impact of children being without the necessities and how it affects their schooling.

The RYSE program is a huge benefit to our community for so many reasons such as providing the necessary support to these families in need.

Resource Development for United Way of Roanoke Valley.

During the day we arranged a scavenger hunt throughout the building—employees needed to find at least 10 United Way logos to receive participation tickets. On Wednesday, employees enjoyed playing games such as puttShare one or two popular activities putt, corn hole, and Plinko. We concluded on Friday by randomly or strategies that your company has found successful during your selecting the participation tickets for prizes such as Roanoke Times Annual Campaign or for yearmerchandise, Roanoke Downtown round engagement with United and Kroger gift cards, as well as an Way of Roanoke Valley. extra day off from work.

We held UW Event Week which turned out to be very successful What is the funniest/most and we received a lot of positive memorable thing that has feedback from our employees. happened during your time as an During the week we collected ECM? the UW pledge forms and on our first day, we held a BBQ The most memorable occurrence lunch with guest speaker, Jeff during our Event Week was on Collignon, Vice President of Game Day when we encountered

so much laughter and unity.

What do you wish other people knew about United Way of Roanoke Valley?

How simple it is to give to the United Way and, again, the positive impact on our community: • $1 (the cost of a downloaded song) per week provides a family of four with food to eat for two weeks.* • $5 (the cost of a gourmet coffee drink) per week allows a homebound senior three hot meals a day or a middle schooler can receive afterschool homework help.* *Information from the Employee Campaign Manager & Guidebook

2017 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Board Chair Susan A. Campbell Vice-Chair Mark Lawrence Finance and Operations Committee Chair Kerry Edmonds Resource Development Committee Chair Hans L. Carstensen III Marketing and Communications Committee Chair Gregory Brock Community Impact Committee Chair Stephanie Harper, MD, MPP Directors Kathy Baske Young Nathaniel L. Bishop, D. Min John S. D’Orazio Thomas Gates Cheryl W. Hartman, Ph. D. Terry Jamerson Carolyn Kiser Sheila K. Lambert Gary Larrowe Ariel Lev Michael Maxey Debbie C. Meade Christopher Morrill Robert D. Nave, CPCU Carl Palmer Lolly Quigley Michael K. Quinn Craig Ramey, Ph. D. Angela H. Reynolds Timothy E. Smothers Chad Spangler Elda Stanco Downey, Ph. D. Samantha Steidle Craig T. Strong Amy Ziglar

Drawing CONTEST

CALLING ALL ARTISTS AGE 19 AND YOUNGER: Ending Child Homelessness Outfitters (ECHOutfitters) is calling for submissions for their first series of Art Class brand t-shirts.

ECHOutfitters was launched by husband and wife Seth and Feliza Criner in response to news coverage about the Rehousing Youth for Success in Education (RYSE) initiative by United Way of Roanoke Valley. After learning about the number of homeless students in the area, they wanted to get involved and help by launching a website that sells children’s apparel with 10 percent of their gross sales going to charities that are fighting child homelessness.

The theme of this first contest is to create a picture of “home.”

Once submissions are received, ECHOutfitters will choose a design and work with a graphic designer to make a professional illustration to be printed on a shirt which will then be sold through their site with part of the proceeds benefitting the RYSE initiative.

They will run contests throughout the year with simple topics that will produce a unique product that is imagined by kids, designed by professionals, and made to benefit children in need.

Please submit all photos of artwork to ArtClass@ECHOutifitters.com. Deadline for submissions is Friday, March 31, 2017.

United Way of Roanoke Valley