The two active duty Air Force members, stationed at Pease International Tradeport, were part of the volunteer force that deployed to support the second annual K-Ready Kids literacy drive.  K-Ready Kids places backpacks filled with books and literacy supplies on the backs of pre-K kids in Rockingham and Strafford counties in New Hampshire and in Kittery and Elliot, Maine.

Dawn notes that a base-wide email went out offering the volunteer opportunity and she jumped at the opportunity to return to the event.  She helped out last year as well.

“I just think it’s important to support the community,” she said.  ”I really enjoy this.”

The main event happens tomorrow: bags will be packed, sorted and sent out all across the region.  Stay tuned!

Andy Smith, Board Member and Director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, was the host of the program, an interactive activity that encouraged crowd participation.  Questions were centered around our work and investments.

Between topics–volunteer readers, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), the Seacoast Early Learning Alliance–United Way staff members Lauren Wool (Community Impact), Quinn Slayton (Resource Development) and Dave Johnson (Marketing) delivered brief, personal testimonials about the work. The theme of the  monologues was “I was a witness to your impact.”

All in all, a terrific night and a wonderful venue, energized by the common vision shared by stakeholders in United Way’s work.

To view photos from the event please click here.

Special thanks to Optima Bank & Trust and Usource for their sponsorship.

U-source is an energy services company based in Portsmouth, NH that provides customized energy management and procurement services to commercial, industrial, and institutional customers in deregulated markets. Visit their website at www.usourceenergy.com.

Optima Bank is a locally-owned commercial bank that operates out of the Seacoast region of New Hampshire.  Learn more at www.optimabank.com.

At the Newmarket event, Kim welcomed 25 health related professionals. Students  signed up for 30-minute presentations on topics they were interested in.

The event kicked off with a motivational speech from Dwight Davis (pictured), the 2013 Campaign Chair for United Way of the Greater Seacoast.

“Credit unions are all about people helping people and what better way to help people in the community and give back.” – Peter Kavalauskas, CEO/President of the Northeast Credit Union, in regards to the VITA project.

Recently, I was granted the opportunity to fills Dave’s shoes and attend a check presentation from the Northeast Credit Union. The Northeast Credit Union has been supporting United Way and the Volunteer Income Tax assistance (VITA) project for seven years. Having learned about this project through Dave, it was great being able to go on site and see where it all takes place.

VITA is an amazing program, helping low-income individuals and families get the income tax they deserve. Using volunteers from UNH along with other professional tax preparers, the participants are able to use this service free of charge. This is just one way United Way strives to help families achieve financial stability and it was a great opportunity to see where some of the action happens.

It was also fun for me to get some extra real world communications experience. Part of my task was to take pictures of the presentation and also get a quote from the President of the Northeast Credit Union. I was nervous at first I was unsure what to ask, but the questions flowed out naturally and I was able to get some great comments from him on the VITA project.

I know that the marketing and communications field will involve a lot of these kinds of experiences and I was happy to dive right into it as an intern. Experience in interviewing people will be a great asset to my future career goals. I’m glad I was able to partake in the promotion of the VITA program. I think it’s an amazing project that is extremely beneficial to families who wouldn’t have had the resources to prepare their taxes on their own.

The National Endowment for Financial Education has developed several Financial Workshop Kits to help teach money management skills.  The kits, intended to be used by an instructor but which can easily serve as a stand-alone tutorial, include Powerpoints with an accompanying script and handouts.

Included is a College Series comprised of seven kits targeted to college students.  The kits include: Dealing with Debt, Budgeting for Life After Graduation, Money Potholes, Budgeting, Money Management Actions, Preventing Identity Theft and 40 Money Management Tips Every College Student Should Know.

Here’s the link: http://www.financialworkshopkits.org/workshops/college-series.aspx.

Another source is UNH CashCourse offered by the UNH Extension Service.  The site provides an entry point for UNH students, parents, and recent grads who want to learn more about managing debt, creating a budget, planning for the future, and more.  The link: http://www.cashcourse.org/unh/

Check out this PDF on 40 Money Management Tips for more information!

And special thanks to Lou Stamas, AmeriCorps VISTA extraordinaire for pulling this info together!

“We’re delighted to partner with United Way and the Cash Coalition on this project,” he said. “It’s grown every year.”

Last year, nearly 700 families were helped through this program. Kavalauskas notes that over 800 people have been served in 2013.

“The tax refunds that we’ve been able to generate have grown tremendously,” he added.

Northeast Credit Union has been supporting United Way and the VITA project for the past seven years. The bank offers its facilities as a host site where participants can meet with the tax volunteers for tax preparation and budget counseling.

My traffic sense eventually won out, however, and we pulled swiftly and safely into the emergency room entrance. The clock was still ticking. My wife was resisting the overwhelming urge to push and, facing the prospect of living through a Very Special Birthing Episode of a sitcom from the early ‘90s, I hustled out a wheelchair, gingerly helped my wife into it and politely informed the ER personnel that “For the love of Pete if you don’t get a midwife down here pronto there’s an excellent chance my son is going to come flying out of with the velocity of an Aaron Rodgers seam pass!!!”

The on-duty nurses scrambled to get my wife prepped and transferred. Apparently, this was a new experience for some of them, who, by judging their uneasy glances, would have been far more comfortable if I wheeled in a guy impaled on a trident instead of a pregnant woman.

As the contractions increased in magnitude we made our way to the elevator, the prenatal nurses imploring my wife to do her best to refrain from pushing. Two thoughts entered my head during this: 1) “Holy Cow, there’s a chance my son will be born in an elevator!” and, 2) “What’s a cool boy’s name to signify this? Stanley?”

Thankfully we were out and into the maternity ward before such a consequential decision had to be made and as my wife entered the home stretch, I assumed the default husband post, up as close as possible to her head, spouting platitudes, averting my eyes from the shenanigans happening due south and being reminded over and over again that if I were in my wife’s position I would have asked to have been rendered unconscious with a mallet hours before.

And then, a few minutes later, he was here.

A goopy miracle, crying into the soft night.

I held him, transfixed once again by the staggering process that produced the tiny human being in my arms. Was it really just a few months ago I was looking at an ultrasound of an Everlasting Gobstopper? Now, this, a new soul, seconds old, a life of who-knows-what lying before him.

Working at United Way for nearly a year-and-a-half has revealed fresh amazement at how critical and formative the interaction with a young child can be to his or her development. Never is the human brain more active than in the early years; an eight-month-old infant can have up to a trillion synapses already formed. They are new to this world; they devour it with their senses. And the brain, in all of its wonder, accommodates.

Healthy child development is a major issue area for our organization and being a dad two times over has brought the stakes home in a big way. I could rattle off stats and trends and data, but I need only to take a moment and look deep into the searching, staring, attentive eyes of my son, Cole, and see it all become real.

There is magic behind those eyes.

David Johnson is the Director of Marketing and Communications for United Way of the Greater Seacoast

Recipient children fall within the Greater Seacoast service region, which includes Strafford and Rockingham Counties and two Maine towns, Eliot and Kittery.

For more information about how individuals, companies, schools and groups can participate in K-Ready Kids through volunteerism, donations or sponsorship visit www.uwgs.org/kreadykids or call United Way of the Greater Seacoast at 603-436-5554.

Two weeks ago, I was able to attend the Walk-a-Mile with United Way of the Greater Seacoast.  Walk-a-Mile is a simulation in which participants are placed into different impoverished “families” who each have their own stories. Each person must go through five days in the life of their character and make decisions based on their characters background and current circumstances. It’s a great way to try and see what it’s like for poor families who have to struggle every day. It allows you to “walk a mile” in their shoes.

I was on the volunteer side of the simulation in that I ran one of the tables. My table represented a business that had current employees and was also hiring. I would have to make sure the employees came to work on time, give them tasks to do and pay them on pay day. I also had to conduct interviews with people who were applying for the open positions.

At my table, the busy times tended to come in waves which allowed me to walk around the rest of the simulation and check out other tables or listen to what the families were discussing. I liked being able to check out the different areas and see what other responsibilities people had. You could definitely get a sense of chaos and stress exuding from the families as they tried to plan out how to best use their funds and how to manage their hectic schedules.

This wasn’t easy for them. I don’t think many of the people involved realized how stressful this simulation would be. Many said they didn’t like how they didn’t have time to make a plan, but later realized this was probably what impoverished families deal with all the time. They constantly have to rush around to get to their different shifts or pay bills or pick up their kids from daycare.

One woman, who was playing a mother, said she felt as if she couldn’t truly give her children any time or love because of how busy she was. She felt as if she was always giving canned responses. I’m sure this happens all the time in the real world. It made me think about the actual children out there who are getting those canned responses and feeling a lack of love from their parents. That lack of emotional support can’t be good for them, and I hope that they’re at least receiving some while at school.

It would have been interesting to be on the other side of this event as an actual participant. While I certainly got some good insight as a volunteer, actually participating in the event would have allowed me to feel the stress and anxiety myself and truly walk a mile in the shoes of those who struggle each and every day.

I think this is a great way for people to experience how poverty affects every day life. I think it changed a lot of the participants’ perspectives on things. It allowed them to better understand some of the struggles people deal with daily. United Way should certainly continue with this event so that more and more people have the ability to learn something about the impoverished and walk a mile in their shoes.