THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 8, 1995 TAG: 9509080496
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
In a snow-white circus tent at the foot of Mount Trashmore, 2,000 partying volunteers found the rain to be refreshing late Thursday, after giving 12,000 hours sprucing up South Hampton Roads to start the 1995 fund drive for the United Way.
Their laughing faces energized the place as they wolfed hamburgers and related the day's saga while a six-piece band, Fast Forward, blasted away.
They cheered as campaign chairman David A. King Jr. set a goal of $15.6 million, an increase of $300,000 over last year's total.
``We have a far better than average chance of reaching our goal,'' he told a reporter.
``Pace Setters,'' companies that start early to set the pace for the fall campaign just beginning, report that some are already over last year's totals, at least two by 20 percent, King noted.
Traditional, long-standing campaign stalwarts indicate a willingness to go an extra mile if need be.
A downsizing of aid from Congress and state legislatures means that the needs may be unusually acute at the grass roots.
``It's more important than ever that we as a community step up to help families,'' said Mike Hughes, United Way president.
Investments in Scouting and in Boys and Girls Clubs pay dividends in happier lives and in the community's well-being, Hughes said.
``Expenditures per boy and girl are far less than investments in prisons that unfortunately are a growth industry,'' he said. ``It makes sense to support community organizations through United Way.''
Talk in the tent focused on how volunteers, taking off from regular jobs, helped a host of agencies in the fourth annual Day of Caring.
Their work had been spectacular, said Craig Horton, the Day's chairman. In Norfolk's Park Place, an all-woman crew of Habitat for Humanity was building a house for a single mother with three children.
``No men are allowed,'' Horton said. Now and then a man may offer advice on some problem of carpentry that arises, but he doesn't touch a hammer or saw.
Small images enlivened the Day's mosaic of joy.
Hughes recalled the absorption of a middle-aged woman touching up a paint job on walls that children had dirtied at the William A. Hunton YMCA in Norfolk.
``Was anything unusual about her?'' the reporter asked.
``Yes,'' he said, ``she had more paint on herself than on the wall.''
Horton noticed that as the crew in Park Place was putting up the walls for a bedroom and the bathroom, they were signing their names on the wood beams.
A short time later, wallboard was covering up the signatures that would remain hidden for the life of the house. Never mind.
The builders would know. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
JIM WALKER
Staff
Volunteers Lindsay Graybill, 2, left, and Hope Ward, 2, show Danny
Smith how to pick weeds at a child-care center.
by CNB