United Way seeks volunteers for Community Vision Council

The United Way of Central Arkansas is inviting the public to participate in its Community Vision Council, which will help shape the United Way's future goals.

Executive Director Samantha Huseas said the United Way of Central Arkansas, through last year's community needs assessment, determined the top 10 needs in the community. The next step, she said, was compiling data supporting the needs identified in the assessment. Now, she said, the United Way is taking that information back to the public for guidance.

"We will come up with a starting point to improve conditions in those areas but will ask the community to help us formulate a plan," she said. "It's important to us that we have community buy-in and support when we put together our action plan, because we'll need the community's help to achieve whatever goals are set."

The first meeting will be 6 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at the Conway Regional Women's Center classroom. Light refreshments will be provided.

Huseas said anyone interested in helping with what will be a fairly large undertaking should attend. She said the first meeting will be mostly informational with follow up meetings scheduled thereafter.

"We would like to have a variety of backgrounds," Huseas said. "If someone has an interest but doesn't feel they know enough or they're not in the right circles there are no right circles or previous knowledge required. We'll provide the knowledge if they're just willing to help us."

The United Way will focus on the areas of health, education and income. Huseas said these focus areas are "the basic building blocks a person or family needs to have a fulfilling life.

"At the end of the day we're trying to improve lives. We've determined most needs fall into these categories," she said.

The group will come up with outcomes or goals at the community level for each focus area, Huseas said. They will create short term, intermediate and long-term goals.

"For this first meeting, it's really important for people to come who have any interest," she said.

No specific time commitment will be required, she said. Interested people can be as involved as they choose.

Huseas said this is a big step for the United Way of Central Arkansas.

"We're going to set goals that will improve the entire community, and these goals will be achieved by doing A, B and C. That's a big thing," she said. "United Ways have been moving toward that for a while, but to get to the point where we're doing it is pretty exciting."

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)