Community Reimagined Episode 14

On this episode of Community Reimagined, we have an awesome conversation with our keynote speaker for the Celebrate Awards, Beth Kanter, Abby Garrison and Connor Tarter.  With the Celebrate Awards being just a few weeks away, we wanted to highlight the importance celebration and you don't want to miss it.  Thank you to our episode's sponsor, Shaw Industries. Learn more about Shaw’s commitment to the community, here: https://shawinc.com

On this episode of Community Reimagined, we are celebrating Volunteer Appreciation Month by diving into an awesome conversation around our new Community Investments process with Dr. Edna Varner, Brian Beaulieu, Terrance Brown and our host, Connor Tarter. In this episode, we wanted to highlight, celebrate, and transparently share the changes in our Community Investments process, total requests from applicants, and our thorough, volunteer dependent and led review process. Beginning in 2017, our historical allocations process underwent an innovative process to move from transactional to transformational impact and investments. Working alongside our historically funded partners and community advocates, we embarked on a design journey to reimagine mutual power-sharing and accountability through resource investment. Our Community Investments team worked closely with historically funded partners to ensure a step-down process to maintain the trust we all worked to build throughout the years while also preparing to build new bridges of trust with new partnering organizations!

On this episode of Community Reimagined, we are closing out Women’s History Month by diving into an empowering conversation around Mai Bel Hurley’s impact in the community, United Way and women in leadership which is why we brought together an incredible group of women - Councilwoman Jenny Hill, Marie Hurley Blair and Alison Lebovitiz. In case you missed it, in celebration of Women's History month, we've put our some awesome blog pointing to some incredible women in out community including Mai Bell Hurley.  You can check out the following blogs to learn more - The United Way of Greater Chattanooga History Month: Mai Bell Hurley & Women in United Leadership, Providing Healing, Promoting Hope, Women's History & Shaw, Celebrating Women United's Impact.  To watch Mai Bell Hurley's episode on The A List with Alison Lebovitz, you can start here: https://video.wtcitv.org/video/list-alison-lebovitz-mai-bell-hurley/ We want to give a shout out to this episode's sponsor, Shaw Industries. To learn more about Shaw, start here: https://shawinc.com. 

On our season two kickoff of Community Reimagined, our very own, Connor Tarter and Terrance Brown, sit down to have a meaningful conversation with their guest, Lakweshia Ewing, in celebration of Black History Month. Lakweshia is the CEO of Unlearn Everything and Live. To learn more about her organization, check out her website at www.unlearneverythingandlive.com.  To learn more about the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga, start here: www.ulchatt.net. We want to give a shout out to this episode's sponsor, 211. A free and confidential service used by thousands of people across the Tennessee Valley to find the local resources they need, when they need them. To get help, start by calling 2-1-1.

Generosity has the power to change everything. In our season finale, Connor Tarter and Jessica Bastianelli chat about our iGAVE model. This generosity model is founded on impact for our community.  To learn more about our 2020 - 2021 Impact Report, start here: https://unitedwaycha.org/impactreport/ 

In this month's episode, our 2021-2022 Workplace Campaign Chair, Dr. Elaine Swafford, hosts a roundtable conversation with two of our community champions, Betsy Kammerdiener from CHI Memorial and Stacey Keating from CBL Properties.  At the core of what we do at United Way, we envision a community where all people achieve their full human potential through education, stability, and health & well-being. That’s why we believe it is so important to create space for conversation around our community champions as we enter into our workplace campaign season. Workplace campaigns represent collective action in giving, volunteering and advocacy. By joining the current movement of 400+ corporate and entity partners in our community as a community champion, you are joining a group of workplace leaders committed to making Greater Chattanooga a better place for everyone to live, work and play through creating opportunity for all. From fundraising ideas to employee communication and everything in between, our online campaign toolkit has the resources you need to make your workplace campaign a success. To learn more, start here: https://unitedwaycha.org/get-involved/workplace-giving/ 

On this episode of Community Reimagined, our very own Jamaine Akins and Carl Rohsenberger dive into a round table conversation with Senior Director of Public Relations & Corporate Communications at CBL Properties, Stacey Keating. The purpose of this show is to talk about what is happening in our community, look at the problems that we are seeing and to create a space to highlight the change-makers who are making a difference in the Greater Chattanooga area and on this episode we dive into campaign and how that impacts the community. At the core of what we do at United Way, we envision a community where all people achieve their full human potential through education, stability, and health & well-being. That’s why we believe it is so important to create space for moments of collaboration with one another as a community. To learn more about how you can get a workplace campaign started, you can start here: https://unitedwaycha.org/get-involved/workplace-giving/.

Our theme is month is mentorship, and how mentorship plays a critical role in Youth Success. A healthy relationship with an adult can provide stability and emotional safety for kids that need it. When we invest time and energy in our youth community, we invest in their futures as contributing members of society. For those who are listening and want to catch a deeper glimpse into what it could look like to be a mentor with Big Brother Big Sister of Chattanooga, you can check out their website here --> https://www.bbbschatt.org We hope you enjoyed this episode of Community Reimagined. Our hope is that you are feeling encouraged by the change-makers in our community. To learn more about United Way of Greater Chattanooga go to www.unitedwaycha.org to find out how you can give, advocate or volunteer.

What our community has done in the past year has been nothing short of amazing, and we felt was well-deserving of a celebration. This past Tuesday, we partnered together with Venture Forward and hosted the first of many, Celebrate Awards! This event was dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the impactful work nonprofit organizations and corporations in our community did to lift us up in the midst of COVID, Easter Tornados and racial injustice. As a way of thanking these organizations, we presented three awards — the Innovation in Action Award, the Volunteer of the Year Award, and the Nonprofit of the Year Award — dedicated to those who rose up in the midst of unforeseen and unimaginable moments of crisis in service to our neighbors this past year.  You can watch the full award ceremony on Youtube! Go to the link in the show notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NId75xTAfg&mc_cid=05240c47a1&mc_eid=12b66be1df

In this episode, United Way of Greater Chattanooga President and CEO Lesley Scearce sits down with Rachel DeVore, Director of Education at the Bethlehem Center. Rachel shares her expertise in the area of Youth Success in the Greater Chattanooga community, as well as discusses the important work the Bethlehem Center does in out-of-school time programming. Please note that this podcast was designed to be a community resource. The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by guests on the show do not always reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the United Way of Greater Chattanooga.