S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-Fil-A chain restaurants, was honored by President Bush with the President’s Call to Service Award at the White House April 15th, 2008 for his “life-long commitment to volunteer service.”

The President’s Call to Service Award is presented to recipients who have accumulated over 4,000 hours of volunteer community service. Mr. Cathy has dedicated well over that to numerous endeavors throughout his lifetime. He has actively participated in the health of the community by helping young people achieve their potential, as well as helping couples strengthen their marriages.

He has taught Sunday school to 13-year-old young men for almost 50 years. He also founded the Winshape Foundation in 1984 which reaches out to people to nurture and encourage them to be successful parts of the community. The Winshape Foundation offers annual summer camps for boys and girls, and marriage and corporate retreats for adults. Winshape has also added foster homes, and a challeng/ropes course to their grounds at Berry College. Recently Winshape began sponsoring domestic and international missions trips to reach young people in the worldwide community.

S. Truett Cathy is much more than just the successful owner of the “nation’s second-largest quick-service chicken restaurant”, he is a light and blessing to the non-profit community through his lifelong dedication to volunteer service. He has taken his business and service skills to a whole new level that reaches beyond the excellent service Chick-Fil-A offers to its patrons.

“He is a great example of a wealthy, successful business man who has been blessed by God and uses those blessings as opportunties to bless the community in so many ways,” said Ashley Watkins, a Non-profit Major at Southeastern University. “He is an inspiration to people who want to be successful even though they are going into the non-profit sector.”

Below is a video interview of S. Truett Cathy from CNN as he talks about combining business skills and faith:

S.I.F.E. is the acronym for “Students In Free Enterprise.” It “is an international organization that mobilizes university students around the world to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders” according to their website www.sife.org.

Although S.I.F.E. has just recently been added to Southeastern’s list of clubs, their impact on the school and the community of Lakeland can already be seen. This year alone they taught the elderly how to work with computers and the internet, taught third graders about the importance of the orange to Florida’s agriculture and hosted a 5K race to raise money for future projects.

“Next year we really want to expand on what we have done, do bigger projects and expand membership into other majors,” said Michael Hanlin, a Junior completing his business degree at Southeastern, who presented at the regional competition in Orlando this semester.

Annually S.I.F.E. clubs from colleges across the world come together to compete in regional, national, and world competitions. A team from each school presents their club’s projects from the year in front of a panel of business leaders who serve as judges for the competition. Teams are rewarded based upon the success of their projects and the professionalism of their presentation. In this way they are motivated to constantly improve their projects by competing with other schools.

I met with Troop #592 from Lakeland, Florida to get an inside look at exactly how Girl Scouts is impacting the ladies in this particular troop. Their troop leader, Lisa Yutzy, invited me to a local seminar on making your own rain barrel where part of her troop was attending in order to learn information for their Environmental Fair.

These seven fifth, and sixth, grade girls are planning and putting together their own Environmental Fair on May 17th, 2008 at Lake Parker Park. They have gathered their resources, gained support from various donors, planned and are preparing to implement their fair in order to earn the Bronze Award.

“The Bronze Award is the highest merit a Junior Girl Scout can earn,” said Mrs. Yutzy. For those who are unfamiliar with Girl Scouts of America, there are merit badges they earn for the various service projects and fun activities they do throughout their time as a Girl Scout. However, these girls are earning much more than just another patch for their vests, they are gaining valuable life experience.

They have learned the value of health and exercise through several camps where they learned how to water ski, knee board, sled, kayak, and much more. They have also traveled to St. Augustine, Florida and Savannah, Georgia where they learned about the history of the Girl Scouts organization, the history of the two states, how people lived in colonial Florida, and visited Marine Land to learn about ocean life.

Recently the troop went to C.S.I. Camp at Camp Wildwood and learned about DNA, fingerprinting, chemistry, and how to map out dominant and recessive genes. Almost subconsciously these young ladies are learning history, science and other skills in ways that are innovative and fun.

At their weekly meetings, the girls take turns leading the others in various activities to teach them how to be responsible leaders. They have taught one another how to cook and have even spent their meeting time providing food to Lighthouse Ministries in Lakeland.

During another meeting, the girls cut an apple in half, rubbed their unwashed hands on the fleshy inside of it, and left it out till their next meeting, one half untouched and the other defiled by their dirty hands. By the next week the dirty half was significantly different from the clean half.

“We could see how many germs we have on our hands,” said Stephanie Yutzy, Mrs. Lisa Yutzy’s step-daughter who is also one of the girl scouts. This simple science project taught the young ladies much about cleanliness and hygiene.

“This week we’re going to make box ovens,” said Hayley, one of the girl scouts of troop #592. This will prepare them for their next camping trip so they can actually make one and cook with it out in the woods!

Clearly these girls’ lives are being impacted by their involvement with Girl Scouts of America and they are being taught how to positively impact their own community of Lakeland through Girl Scouts. The experiences, life-skills and social skills they have accumulated through this nonprofit organization are priceless.

After the girls learned about water conservation and the use of rain barrels at the seminar I previously mentioned, I sat down to talk to them about the impact of Girl Scouts on their lives and this is what they said:

To see more examples of activities Girl Scouts participate in see the youtube.com video below:

According to the PR Newswire website article, the organization is “implementing Serenic Navigator to support [their] standard of transparency and integrity in reporting [their] finances to [their] partners and friends of the ministry.”

Serenic President and CEO Randy Keith told PR Newswire that “they needed a system that will give them the ability to integrate donation activity with a proven financial management solution developed specifically to meet the needs of nonprofits.”

Nonprofit organizations that are willing to carefully track and publish their financial information are typically more honest and more likely to hold themselves up to a higher standard of integrity when it comes to raising funds for their organization. When looking for a good organization to donate to or volunteer with, check out their finances and see exactly what your money and time is supporting.

I know my feature stories are not as interesting as, say, the latest scandal with Governor Guilianni, but these organizations I talk about are worth our time. In a world that focuses on the famous (or infamous, depending on how you view it) entertainment industry, people in politics, crime, war, and the resulting chaos that revolves around such issues, we as humans need to hear about the positive side of the world too.

There ARE good things going on in the world! The world has not “gone to hell in a hand-basket”! I am sick and tired of listening to the news and reading in the headlines of the newspapers and magazines all the drama and awful occurrences of the day. Of course, increasing our knowledge of the reality of crime can help us protect ourselves, and learning more about the pasts of presidential candidates can help us make a calculated decision on who to vote for. Those things can be beneficial to an extent, but what about the benefits we reap from hearing good news?

Proverbs 15:30 tells us that “Light in a messengers eyes brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.” Then Proverbs 16:24 says that, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Isaiah 52:7 says, “How beautiful…are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings…”

Think about the last time someone told you something good that happened to them, or some good news in general. How did you feel while they were telling you? What about when you hear good news about earning a raise, or a better job? Doesn’t good news, whether it pertains directly to you or not, make you feel, well, GOOD?

It is important that we share good news with others.

Whether we realize it or not, our good news, or bad news, affects the lives of people around us. Why not be a creator, or at least a reporter, of the unacknowledged, unglorified, good news of nonprofit organizations? After all, it is good news that gives us hope for the world and for our own lives. A positive report lets humanity know that there is goodness in the world and sometimes that alone gets us through the hard times.

Nonprofits are forces for good.

Nonprofit organizations fill the voids and help heal the hurts of mankind. That seems like a lofty statement, but consider for a moment the impact World Vision or Compassion International has on the world. These two organizations alone have changed the lives of millions of children and families internationally. They help the weak, the poor, the hungry, the orphaned and widowed by not just giving them a “fish for the day, but teaching them how to fish”.

So, why do I write about nonprofits? I write because they are the ones out there doing the gruntwork, usually behind the scenes, out of the minds of the public, for the lowest pay (if they are payed at all!), working with the forgotten, abused, challenged, weak, sick people of society who others do not wish to acknowledge. I write to them, and for them, in gratitude for the great work they are doing. Even if they are never recognized this side of heaven for their good deeds, they continue, they press forward, in hope of bringing some morsel of joy to the world.

Join Hands.
Open Your Heart.
Lend Your Muscle.
Find Your Voice.
GIVE. ADVOCATE. VOLUNTEER.
LIVE UNITED.

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That’s the new slogan for United Way…you know, that nonprofit organization that does …good stuff.
What exactly does the United Way do? I interviewed Susan Black, director of marketing and communications at the local Central Florida branch, who said that their new LIVE UNITED campaign should introduce us all to the community changing impact United Way has Nationwide.

Every community has issues that wreak havoc on the lives of children, families and disabled persons. Living United means being part of changing these issues in communities by working toward three initiatives: helping children through education, helping families through training and helping the disabled or elderly through wellness.

United Way is essential to any community because they financially support the various nonprofit organizations that provide the services to help such people. They also track the success of the programs to produce quantifiable results.

Mrs. Black pointed out that the organization’s main focus is not to simply temporarily relieve problems but to support programs that help people get their lives back on track. “It’s not enough to just feed someone who is hungry, we want to find out the root of the problem and help them fix that,” said Mrs. Black.

The United Way of Central Florida’s Community Impact Cabinet just did a huge research project studying the root causes of grade school dropouts. After speaking to professionals, studying statistics and bringing in analysts they discovered that a strong education began in preschool. So, they concluded, when a child is held back or not educated well enough in those first five years of life they have a significant likelihood to drop out of high school before graduating. A lack of an education then can lead to going to jail, teen pregnancy and/or dependency on government support for help. To prevent this issue United Way supports and refers people to nonprofit organizations who can help parents prepare their children for grade school.
A few examples of the local organizations who deal with childhood education that United Way supports are the Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Salvation Army and Achievement Academy, Inc.

(This is a basic video about what United Way does to positively impact local communities across the nation.)

As one of the largest and most successful nonprofit organizations in the country, United Way knows how to create a unified community by supporting other nonprofits such as those previously mentioned. The Central Florida branch has 5 people on staff whose main purpose is to raise funds. They are the middle men and women between United Way and donors who prepare presentations, train volunteers and lead the loaned executives program.

The loaned executives program brings in business executives from big companies, trains them about the United Way and prepares them to give presentations to other companies to help raise funds. The majority of United Way’s funding comes from corporate businesses, their employees and individual donors. Then all of the collected funds are allocated to the various nonprofit organizations the United Way supports.

Volunteers can get involved at this point in many ways. Some volunteers from the business community help analyze the programs implemented by each organization and determine whether the program is worthy of funding. Other volunteers may be the ones who actually go into the community to test a program or help an organization develop a quantifiable way of evaluating a program.

Staff members from the United Way, such as Mrs. Black, also reach out to other nonprofit organizations to help them develop better public relations and marketing skills so that they can raise their own funds as well.

“I feel like I am involved and more a part of the community when I am actually doing something that changes people’s lives,” said Black. Other nonprofit employees also say the wonder of working for a nonprofit organization that helps people is that you know that your hours of hard work are not in vain.

Mrs. Black says the pay is the only downfall to working for a nonprofit. Many nonprofits cannot even afford to have any paid staff, but the United Way is one of only a few that actually can offer paid positions to their employees. Yet, like the majority of nonprofits, most of the staff is made up of unpaid volunteers who sacrifice their time to help their communities.

The United Way connects businesses and individuals to the nonprofits. The nonprofits connect to the poor, needy, helpless, elderly, disabled and uneducated. Then, as those people and their situations improve, they give back to the community, society and economy which feed the American businesses. It unites all of the pieces of a community together to make our little pieces of the world a better place.

Hence the slogan LIVE UNITED is an excellent way to explain to donors just exactly what the United Way accomplishes for the good of community, which includes you!

So LIVE UNITED, get out in your community and make a difference. Use your gifts and talents to help someone less fortunate than you. A great place to start is the United Way.

To volunteer, ask questions about referrals, donate or get more information, the Central Florida chapter (located at 5605 U.S. Highway 98 South in Highlands City just outside of Lakeland) can be reached via telephone at 863-648-1515. The local website is www.uwcf.org and the national website is www.unitedway.org. Also, the United Way has a facebook group named LIVE UNITED. To hear from other volunteers about their experiences with the United Way see the volunteer blog by clicking on the logo below. By the way, if you don’t have anything to do for Spring Break the United Way has many opportunities for you to serve in your community no matter what state you’re in. For alternative spring break plans click on the logo to see what other students are saying about United Way’s spring break initiatives. Also to see videos about alternative spring breaks done in the past see the think mtv link. Check out all of these resources to see how you can join the campaign and help others.