ICVS Hosts Public Forums on Service

Adam Lounsbury, Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, 515.725.3099


Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service Hosts Statewide Public Forums

September 23, 2009 (Des Moines) - This fall, the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service (ICVS) will host statewide public forums designed to seek input for its State Service Plan that will help shape national service funding decisions for programs authorized by the new Serve America Act.

The ICVS considers this plan a blueprint that will be used, in conjunction with partners, to meet the strategic objectives for volunteer service in Iowa over the next three years.  ICVS is committed to strengthening volunteer referral networks and providing support to nonprofit organizations to effectively utilize volunteers in Iowa.

One-hour public forums are scheduled throughout Iowa:
*         Iowa City Public Library, Sept. 29, 9:30 a.m.
*         Fairmont St. Public Library in Davenport, Sept. 29, 1:00 p.m.
*         Burlington Public Library, Sept. 29, 4:00 p.m.
*         Sioux City Public Library (Main), Oct. 1, 2:00 p.m.
*         Cedar Falls Public Library, Oct. 6, 9:30 a.m.
*         Fort Dodge Public Library, Oct. 6, 1:00 p.m.
*         Urbandale Public Library, Oct. 6, 4:00 p.m.

There is no cost to attend the forums, but pre-registration is requested to help plan for space requirements.  Participation is needed from nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, local government entities and state agencies.  Visit www.volunteeriowa.org<http://www.volunteeriowa.org/> for more information.


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We Can Do Better for Iowa's Children

By: Lisa Sieren

It’s August and it’s warm. But even the summer heat cannot overshadow the fire Women’s Leadership Connection members have for ensuring quality early learning for Iowa’s children. Last week, United Way of Central Iowa, Women’s Leadership Connection and Polk County Empowerment hosted "Meet and Greet for Kids," a legislative event to advocate for affordable quality early childhood programs.

Over 50 early childhood advocates, including WLC members and legislators, networked and discussed the importance of improving access to quality early learning programs. The highlight of the event was a short program that included the personal story by one family whose child attends Xochipilli Early Education Center at Hispanic Educational Resources. With a tight family budget and the father returning to college to complete his education, the family was unsure they would be able to keep their child at the center and they did not qualify for state child care assistance. With the help of child care scholarships, the child was able to remain at Xochipilli and receive quality early education.

Hearing the family’s story resonated with those in attendance, including me. What also resonated with me was a call to action by Debbie Hubbell, chair of the Women’s Leadership Connection Advocacy Committee, when she said "we can do better." And we can. That’s why interim legislative events like these are so important. Advocacy is a year-round effort. The state legislature is only in session a few months of the year. It takes efforts like these to build the relationships and support necessary to move an issue during session.

Pacesetters

Wow – you wouldn’t know it if you were in my shoes but the 2009 campaign STILL hasn’t officially kicked off yet! The official start to our annual workplace campaign is mid-September but the campaign staff and our volunteers have been going full throttle since June. A special group of “early-birds” that I want to highlight here are our Pacesetter campaigns.

Each year, in the hot days of summer, we join up with a community volunteer to recruit a group of companies that agree to set an aggressive goal for their United Way campaigns and then run their campaigns before the rest of the community even gets started. The hope is that this set of companies can set the pace for other companies to follow – thus building the momentum for a successful community-wide campaign.

Our lead volunteer in the 2009 pacesetter effort is Gary Palmer, President and CEO at Prairie Meadows. Gary is no rookie at community engagement and this is his second year in a row lending his time to recruiting our pacesetter companies. He did an outstanding job this year recruiting a top notch group of organizations that were eager to demonstrate their community support. Those companies are (in alpha order): Alliance Technologies, AVIVA USA, Central Financial Group, City of Ankeny, City of Clive, City of Johnston, Delta Dental, GuideOne Insurance, Homesteaders Life Co., Hubbell Realty Co., KPMG, Kum & Go, and Mediacom.

I have the opportunity to work closely with GuideOne and Hubbell Realty on their pacesetter campaigns. I have been extremely impressed with their employees’ level of engagement and enthusiasm for United Way. It has been encouraging for me to see that they truly understand this year is not a year to let up on investing in our community.

If you know someone who works for one of these companies, please join me in thanking them for stepping up during a year when it would be easy to step down. Also, please stay tuned to this blog for updates on how the pacesetter effort wraps up. Will they get a million in the door before September 4… ?

Young adults as today's and tomorrow's leaders

I believe Whitney sang it best: "I believe the children are our future..." While Ms. Houston's message is nice, from my experience in working with young adults in our community young people are more than our future, they are part of our world today. So why don't we start treating them that way? I can't tell you how many times a week I hear condescending remarks about "young people" and what gets me every time is how those making these remarks miss the mark completely: (1) Talking bad about someone isn't going to motivate them to change their behavior or it is just going to reinforce that bad behavior; (2) If young people are so bad, where do you think they learned it? As Bill Millikin, author of Stop the Epidemic: The Last Dropout states, "We don't have a youth problem, we have an adult problem."

Now I'm not going to be whiny in this entire post and I'm going to talk about a few exciting things when it comes to young people in our community. Here in Central Iowa we have a lot of colleges and universities that support service learning, which gives college students the opportunity to apply what they are learning in class through service in their local community. This past year, United Way of Central Iowa offered the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program as a service learning opportunity, and 30 percent of our volunteers ended up being college students. Additionally, United Way of Central Iowa works with young people all throughout Central Iowa through our Student United Way and The 10,000 Hours Show Show. Both programs have had great outcomes by recognizing more than 17,000 hours of service this past year, and starting up programming at a Boys and Girls Club.

Simply put ,we need to start encouraging and demonstrating positive behavior and stop reinforcing the negative behavior. I'll step off my soapbox now.

No, it's not a potato chip

By Lisa Sieren


No, it’s not a potato chip—it’s children’s health insurance. You may have heard many iterations of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). SCHIP: State Children’s Health Insurance Program (the former acronym). CHIPRA: Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (the new acronym). Or just plain old Hawk-I: Iowa’s version of CHIP. With all these acronyms, I would not hold it against you if you did think it was a potato chip.


You have probably seen news stories, billboards or advocacy campaigns related to children’s health insurance. CHIP is going to continue to get a lot of press and promotion in the coming months, so I thought it was time to give a brief overview of this program, especially given its link to United Way’s health priority of improving people’s health.


In short, CHIP is a federal program to cover America’s uninsured children, specifically low-income children. While the federal government provides guidelines around CHIP, states are largely responsible for the design and implementation of the program. Each state’s CHIP program looks different. Iowa’s version, Hawk-I, is specifically designed to meet the needs of Iowa’s children. To learn more about Hawk-I, check out their website at http://www.hawk-i.org/.


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently released information on outreach and enrollment grants that will focus on reaching more uninsured children with this program. Based on these grants, we are likely to see more public campaigns on Hawk-I in the state.


That’s just a quick overview CHIP (just a chip of CHIP, if you will tolerate my humor). There’s a host of information out there on this program, so I encourage you to look more into it if you are interested. Feel free to email me at lsieren@unitedwaydm.org to learn more about what United Way of Central Iowa is doing to improve children’s health.

Day of Action

On Wednesday this week, United Way of Central Iowa announced registration is open for Day of Action. Companies and groups are invited to help advance the common good in the priority areas of education, income, and health during Day of Action on September 17, 2009.

Companies are asked to organize teams of four to 20 employees to take on short-term projects that can often be completed in just a few hours. These projects benefit United Way community partners and schools throughout Polk, Dallas and Warren counties.

This year United Way will have two featured projects including:

United Way Read to Learn
Read to Learn is an education initiative and one of the many opportunities we have for Day of Action volunteers. Volunteers work one-on-one (or in small groups) with third graders to increase their reading ability using proven, research-based literacy kits.

Destination Graduation: Reach Out to Dropouts Day
On Saturday, September 26 from 8 a.m. to noon, teams of United Way volunteers will join Des Moines Public Schools employees and go door-to-door to help re-enroll high school students who have not yet returned to school. Volunteers participating in the event are required to attend a training beforehand; training will be available on Day of Action from 8 to 9:30 a.m. After registering for the training, you will be contacted about more information regarding the Reach Out to Dropouts Day on September 26.

To Register for Day of Action click here.

Dreams

By Colin Peterson

(warning, this blog is a bit rambling but it does have a point at the end if you get there)

We all have dreams. I have lots of dreams. I dream of being a rock star traveling the country and playing in sold-out arenas. That is a far-fetched dream and I hope you’ll cross your fingers with me that it might someday come true. Meanwhile, here is a dream that is much more achievable – I’d like to someday be a millionaire.

A millionaire!? Yes, that is what I said. People who know me will say since you work for a non-profit and your wife is a public school teacher, becoming a millionaire is a pretty long shot. I don’t think so. There is lots of research that shows people can achieve significant wealth in one generation with modest incomes. It all depends on what choices an individual makes regarding spending and saving decisions (I think a bit of luck helps too since none of us is immune to tragedies and other events that can knock you off even the most solid financial footing).

One source to back this up and give me some hope is a book I’ve been reading entitled, “The Millionaire Next Door.” The authors conducted extensive research to find out what wealth in America looks like. What they found is that often times, people who look like they are millionaires aren’t, and vice versa. They use their findings to paint a picture of the typical American millionaire.

The good news is my family already does a pretty good job making decisions regarding spending and saving that are in line with the typical American millionaire’s spending and saving habits. However, there is certainly room for improvement. According to this book I should stop shopping at the Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers and start buying all my clothes at JC Penney. Although I feel pretty attached to the aforementioned clothiers, I’m willing to make the change and I’ve made a resolution to start shopping at JC Penney.

So what does this all have to do with philanthropy? Well, in the book the authors state that when asked what their favorite charity is, the typical American millionaire will say, “me.” Wow, I was hanging onto the advice in this book like it was the gospel until I read that. That is one characteristic of the typical American millionaire I will never subscribe to. Giving to charity is far too important. As Suku Radia at Bankers Trust says, philanthropy is all about "paying our civic rent.”

I’ve really enjoyed this book and it has a lot of good insights. However, at the end of the day, if the one thing preventing me from someday becoming a millionaire is my commitment to investing in the social fabric of my community, then so be it. My wife and I will continue to exercise fiscal discipline so we may grow our assets while making modest incomes and keep giving back to help those that need it most.