The United Way of Kitsap County is under new leadership this year. David Foote, Executive Director, enthusiastically leads his Loaned Executives in asking Kitsap County businesses to help fund 31 nonprofit health and human service agencies that depend upon community giving.

“I look at United Way as being the glue that holds a community and its partner agencies together, to do what matters most,” Foote said. “United Way is in the business of creating meaningful and tangible impact in our community. It is not how many people we provide and serve; it is not how many programs or partners we unite. What matters are the bottom-line results — the lives we change and the communities we shape.”

“I am in the community, helping my Loaned Executives meet our 2003 $1,750,000 goal,” Foote said.

“We have a great bunch of Loaned Executives,” Foote said. “They are heartfelt, deeply caring about helping others. United Way trains them in public speaking. They volunteer for approximately four months, speaking before businesses and their employees. Asking people for money is hard. The mobilization of caring power drives the Loaned Executives to ask for money. Their message is what really matters is results.

Last year, 100,000 men, women and children benefited from United Way in Kitsap County — one person in three. However, what really matters is that Silvia, who was raising her grandson, DaQuan, 8, could take DaQuan to the Kitsap Family YMCA’s Cottonwood Childcare Center while she worked.

Katherine, unable to work due to a serious car accident, was accepted into Kitsap Community Resource’s Emergency Housing Program.

Tiffany, whose home was damaged by fire, could use vouchers for a motel and food from the American Red Cross.

That Patty could count on Hospice to accompany her to the doctor’s office in her wheelchair and help set up her home business after her husband, Jim, died from cancer.

“United Way is an investment in our community,” Foote said. That investment, multiplied by others who invest the united way, has the real power to bring about changes that matter where we live.”

For information, call 360-377-8505 or see www.unitedwaykitsap.org.

(Editor’s Note: Sandra Spargo is a United Way Loaned Executive and Sales Associate for John L. Scott Real Estate in Poulsbo.).