One Last Blog

So, yesterday, Julie Talbott and I turned in the last of the courthouse's United Way materials.

And here we are after victory. We made it, and I feel terrific. The goal's met. The campaign's over. And we had a great victory on Friday.



And now the good's to be done.

And I'm glad I signed up to be campaign chairman now. I'm ecstatic I did it. If you'd have asked me last Monday, I probably would have had a different answer! Seriously though, it was great. And now I'm a past campaign chair, and we were the first United Way in this area to finish its campaign on-time. No other United Way in the mid-East Tennessee area has to my knowledge.

Ya' know, I went into this thing with no clue what kind of commitment it was or what it would mean internally working toward goal. And there we were and hadn't made goal at 4:00 o'clock Thursday the day before victory. Then we got the last bit of pledges in that put us over the edge, and it was like a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders – just hours before I was going to announce we made victory. Now I know that wasn't the latest we ever did it, but it sure ain't the earliest we ever made it either.

But the good thing is that the money is going to do so much good.

Like I said at the victory, there's going to be somebody sitting at the kick-off breakfast next year whose life has been forever changed, and my life has been forever changed by being a part of this. I appreciate Sandra and the staff for their hard work. It's just been a wonderful experience, and I'm so excited to be the immediate past chairman.

I want to make it clear I don't want to take any of the credit for this campaign because it's the campaign cabinet and the staff who made this happen. I said from the very beginning, I'm just the head cheerleader – no offense to Bryan Daniels. But it feels great to make goal.

And ya' set goals in life so that ya' have to reach hard. On Monday, I was kickin' myself for not setting the goal at $2,100,000 at the campaign cabinet retreat back in May when we were talkin' about it. And I was like, "Aw, come on. Let's do $2,150,000," and last week, I thought, 'What an idiot was I! Cause we'd have made goal Monday if we'd set it at $2,100,000.' But think about the good that extra $50,000 will do in the life of a child, or a victim of a fire, or a domestic abuse victim, or an elderly person needing a meal.

I'm glad we set it where it was, but we barely went over. But it's like bein' pregnant – either ya' are or ya' aren't. It's one or the other. And last Monday, I said to Sandra, "Why did ya' let me open my big mouth and set that goal so high?"

When ya' really think about it with the 5.1 % increase over last year, with the state of the economy the way it is, with the mortgages, and with the gas prices. The list goes on and on, and with the community to step up the way it did. I guarantee ya' there were many people out there who thought, 'That bunch is crazy if they think they're gonna' raise that much money over what they did last year.' It's proof positive that this is the greatest community in the world to live, and the people in Blount County are truly giving people.

I really appreciate Sandra's confidence in me. I know she has a lot of say in who campaign chairs are. I know they're selected by a committee, but obviously as president and CEO she's not going to let any bonehead do it. She just let this bonehead do it. It's been fun, the most nerve-wracking I've ever been involved in – especially these last two weeks when we're eight days out and we're $175,000 short. But we made it, and I just want to say a final thanks to my campaign cabinet. I have a lot of good friends on there, and I appreciate their help.


This campaign has been a long journey. We started with touring all of the community partners, had a great pacesetters campaign, then had the kick-off breakfast, had a very successful Day of Caring. Then we moved into the campaigns, had the mid-campaign report meeting where we were right on-target, then had the most successful hamburger luncheon where I did those deep-fried Twinkies, then we had Gas Day which was also the most successful Gas Day we've ever had, and then we moved into victory (and I'll never live that down with Twinkie the Kid showin' up), and we're the only United Way in this area to make it on-time and on-goal.


Again, I don't want to take credit for us makin' goal, but I'm glad I could play a small part in that.

Thank y'all for readin' the blog. It's been great to be able to share my thoughts with ya' on here. This has been an incredible journey, and I'm glad I could take y'all with me.

All blogged out,
Dave Bennett