Hundreds of business and community leaders packed the Daphne Civic Center on a Thursday evening to kick off the United Way of Baldwin County’s 2014 fundraising campaign, coming away with a bold new target: $1 million, a jump of roughly $40,000 over the previous year’s goal.
Board member Will Murray announced the figure to the crowd, telling attendees the board had voted on setting an ambitious mark this year. “It’s a goal of $1 million. I think that we definitely could hit that mark,” he said, drawing an enthusiastic round of applause and shouts of approval from the audience.
Before the goal was unveiled, Campaign Chairwoman Katherine Wills took the stage to recognize the organization’s top donors from the previous year. Publix was named Large Company of the Year after contributing $179,378 in 2013, while Trustmark Bank earned Small Company of the Year honors with an $8,356 donation. Foley High School, which has led school campaigns for five consecutive years, brought in $4,912 and was recognized as School of the Year. Fairhope Elementary received the School Spirit Award, and Target was honored with the organization’s Spirit Award.
The United Way of Baldwin County funds 29 nonprofit health and human service agencies across the county, along with United Medical Partnership for Children, which provides medical care to Baldwin County public school students who are uninsured or underinsured.
To illustrate the real-world impact of the campaign, organizers brought in two guest speakers. Frances Holk-Jones, co-founder of the Jennifer Claire Moore Foundation, spoke about how her own connection to United Way deepened after she started the foundation following the death of her daughter in 1997. The foundation now supports Peer Helper programs in both public and private schools throughout Baldwin County, with more than 1,000 students expected to take part as Peer Helpers this year, offering tutoring, mentoring and advocacy support to fellow students navigating everyday struggles.
The second speaker, Kristy Wells, director of community development for The Shoulder, a Christian addiction treatment center in Spanish Fort, delivered an emotional account of her own recovery from prescription painkiller addiction. Wells described a period in her life when she was consuming as many as 70 pills a day, overdosing multiple times and losing her relationships with her husband and children before a felony conviction and a stint in the Baldwin County criminal justice system led her to a United Way-supported program that turned her life around.
Wells pointed to her daughter, seated near the back of the civic center, as proof of how far she had come. She told the crowd that every relationship she had once lost has since been restored, crediting the support she received through a local agency funded by United Way donations for helping her rebuild her life from the ground up.
Organizers said the stories were meant to remind donors that contributions to the campaign translate directly into services for Baldwin County residents facing addiction, poverty, and other hardships, as the United Way works toward its most ambitious fundraising goal yet.