Blount County Rescue Squad

Hey everybody,

We recently visited with Capt. Patrick McGinley at the Blount County Rescue Squad. I worked a lot with the Rescue Squad before we visited because of my relationship with the County and all of the things that I have been involved in. Those folks at the Rescue Squad are all volunteers – dedicated folks. There are 32 of them that are very dedicated in providing their time for free to the squad to respond to car wrecks, water rescue and other rescue situations.

The Rescue Squad was created back in the 50’s to provide those services to the community, and my hat’s off to them because they volunteer their time, services, and knowledge – to save lives.

Capt. McGinley was talking about how they’ve set up a post to deal with wrecks at The Dragon just to increase response time. The Dragon is a huge draw to this community, and this time of year you just have wreck after wreck up there. Every weekend my pager goes off three or four times where there’s been a wreck on the Dragon, and the fire department, sheriff’s department, rural metro, and the rescue squad are responding to those wrecks. I don’t think there’s been a weekend gone by in the last two months that there hasn’t been at least one wreck on the Dragon. It’s a sign of the times, in that we got so many people riding that thing, and with that kinda’ frequency, they have to post somebody up there to make those calls.

When it comes down to it, they are saving lives. What value can you put on that? It’s priceless. There isn’t a value you can put on a life.

The Rescue Squad provides an invaluable service to Blount County, and that's the bottom line.

Blog you soon,
Dave Bennett

Campaign Goal!

Hey everybody,

I'm excited to announce we've finally set a campaign goal: $2.15 million. You read that right: $2,150,000. That's about a five percent increase over last year, but I know we can handle it.

The United Way Board of Directors approved it, and now we gotta' get out there and raise it!

Settin' the goal was a relatively easy to process to work with. Our campaign cabinet first met and decided on what we felt like the goal should be. We talked about big numbers, small numbers, whether to continue where we’re going. We ultimately decided together that $2,150,000 was that number we felt we could raise and that could truly make an impact. We took it to the board and they graciously approved it after a few questions about whether we could raise that money because obviously the board wants us to be set up to be able to succeed. The board’s vote of confidence in the campaign cabinet - in the team that’s been put together - says that they’ve got the faith in them to raise that money.

So, here we are with a goal of $2.15 million. Last year, the campaign goal was $2 million, and we were able to meet and go above it. This year, we plan on doing the same!

Hang on, everybody! It's gonna' be a fast ride!

Blog you later,
Dave Bennett

East Tennessee Technology Access Center

Hey everybody,

We recently had a terrific visit with Lois and Lorrie from the East Tennessee Technology Access Center. They take items and use technology to make the item accessible to folks with disabilities – everything from children’s toys to computer keyboards to even something as simple as a spatula.


They work young, old, and everyone in between. They just use technology to better people’s lives.

Lois told us a story about one gentleman they worked with who was totally dependent on his family. He walked in there with three dreams: he wanted to read, he wanted to get a job, and he wanted to live on his own. Now he’s working in a library, and he’s out on his own. How good a story is that? And it’s not like someone’s out there just constantly helping him – he’s doing all that by himself now. And the Technology Access Center gave him the tools he needed so that his disabilities were no longer disabling. At the end of the day, that’s probably the best story I’ve heard yet. They took someone who was totally dependent and made him totally self-sufficient, and that’s what life ought to be about. And that’s what United Way is all about.

I also got the chance to meet with Tommy who works for ETTAC as a sign language instructor.


He is hearing impaired and has lost most of his sight, but with the help of a computer I was able to have a conversation with him. Now that was one of my favorite things we’ve done so far on these tours. We were just sitting there having a conversation, and it was just very heart-warming to me that we were able to do that. And I wasn’t even thinking about the technology. I was just enjoying sitting there talking to him. It’s like the technology wasn’t even there, and we were laughing via the keyboard. Of course, with my big mouth, I’m talking to Lois while I’m typing to Tommy, and I somehow got the computer all screwed up! Then Tommy had to turn around and tell me to get my hands off the keyboard so that he could fix what I did. Me and my big mouth!

Lois also told us about an Equipment Recycling Program where they take in equipment and can modify it for the disabled. If you have a piece of technology that you’re getting rid of, instead of taking it to the dump, take it to ETTAC, where they can modify it to assist somebody with a disability and get the item back out to the community to someone who could really use it.

This week is Deaf-Blind Awareness Week, and this visit sure did make me aware. To celebrate, they’re inviting all families out to:

KIDSFEST: A Celebration of Children’s Art and Music

It's gonna' be this Saturday at Ijams Nature Center from 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM, and it ought to be a blast.

Have a good one, y’all.

Blog you soon,
Dave Bennett

Boys and Girls Club

Hey everybody,

We met with Gary at the Boys and Girls Club. We toured the facility out at Eagleton, and it was nice to see these kids having a great time. Ya’ know if they didn’t have Boys and Girls club, some of these kids would probably be home alone or on the streets somewhere without any supervision. It helps to keep those kids focused with a program to go to. They can socialize with other kids, and they can develop leadership and life skills that most latchkey kids don’t.

Some people talk bad about the Boys and Girls Club. They call them babysitters, but I heard one of the directors describe the Boys and Girls Club as a “youth development program.” That’s a good way to describe the Boys and Girls Club. They’re not just giving these kids a place to hang out until their parents get home – they’re trying to mold these children into upstanding members of the community.


And there are all kinds of success stories across the country - even here - where these kids come to Boys and Girls club and grow up to be leaders in the community. A lot of that’s because they’ve had an opportunity to learn life skills from the Boys and Girls club.

Man, I’d stay there all day and play with those kids if I could. Gary said there are 135 -140 kids a day when they’re fully signed up – that’s a lot of kids! They’re going to have their hands full, that’s for sure.

Blog you soon,
Dave Bennett

Roundabout Woes

Hey everybody,

I'll make this one quick, but I wanted to warn anybody who's headed out to United Way that the roundabout opened at the old Five Points area of East Broadway.

Photo by: Wes Hope (via The Daily Times' website)

Today was my first time coming to the United Way office since that roundabout opened. It took me three times around before I figured out how to get off the thing. Finally, I just jumped two curbs and scraped a stop sign to get through.

A word to the wise: YOU ALWAYS GO RIGHT, not LEFT in a roundabout.

Blog you later,
Dave Bennett

P.S. Feel free to leave a comment, y'all!

Child & Family TN

Hey everybody,

The other day we visited with Child & Family Tennessee, and that was a just a great visit. Child & Family's mission is to "enhance family life through prevention, treatment and advocacy." They got a lot of great programs, like the Family Crisis Center, Kids on the Block, Safe Place, and others. And they run a couple of group homes in Blount County. I liked hearing about the youth, too. The staff seems energetic and excited, and it takes people like that who can relate to each other to fix a lot of the issues in our community.

One thing I’m learning more and more as we visit these United Way partners is that as a community we need to spend more time, money and energy at the source, not just at the problems. I think we’re starting to do that, but we need to do more, like we need to spend more money when the kids are first born – on the families – helping them learn what it is to be a family and what they need to do as parents, instead of us having to spend money later on finding foster care for these neglected, abused children.

We’ve just got to be more proactive as a community. Think of the millions of dollars we spend in this country on just reacting to issues. If we spent a tenth of that being proactive, we wouldn’t have as many problems. But how do you change that? It’s a shift in society. It’s a change in everyone’s thinking. How do you change a culture’s way of thinking?

United Way is trying to do with community impact, like with the Firm Foundations for Self-Sufficiency Grant they gave to Child & Family to help them turn around several families in Blount County and get them to become self-sufficient and get them off welfare and government programs. They’re trying to get to the root cause of the problem and not just put a band-aid on it.

And that’s what it’s gonna’ take more of!

I better go for now.

Blog y’all later,
Dave Bennett

National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee

Hey everybody,

The other day we visited the Dialysis Center in Blount County where the National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee works a lot of miracles. We met with Helen and Victoria over there, and they gave us a tour and showed us some of the life-saving technology they have out there.

One thing that blew my mind was how the whole process of dialysis works. It’s amazing how one machine can clean a person’s blood within a matter of hours. Of course, it’s also amazing that it takes a big machine like this to do the work of one set of kidneys:

One thing I really got from this visit is just how important it is for us to be communicating to people the need to find out early if they have problems with their kidneys. That’s one thing The Kidney Foundation is trying to do with their KEEP program, where they’ll come into the workplace and test employees to find out who’s at a high risk for developing kidney disease. (And I will be checkin’ into bringing KEEP to the courthouse so that we can get that testing done for our people over there.)

We just got to do more to publicize how preventable kidney disease is. Of course, brochures like this one help people once they have kidney disease, but to me it's just a reminder that I gotta' do more to let people know:

Helen was saying if you find out early and start making changes to your lifestyle, chances are you can beat it. Because once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. The Kidney Foundation is makin' an impact with their research and helping folks that are on dialysis with transportation to and from the clinic, scales, food supplements, and blood pressure monitors - so many things that these folks just need to live - the kidney foundation is meeting the needs there and that’s where our dollars are going, to help meet those needs. And that money stays in Blount County to help folks in Blount County.

While we were there, we met two people who are on dialysis: a real sweet lady named Gloria and a gentleman named Vern, and both those folks put a real face on a problem in our society: kidney failure. If only they could have caught it early on. We need to do whatever we can to cure kidney failure and prevent kidney failure from now on - whatever research we’re able to do. Ya’ know technology has come such a long way. It’s like one of my favorite songs by Clay Walker, where he says, “Why can a man walk on the moon and we need a place like St. Jude’s?” Alone we can’t answer those questions, but together we can put our efforts into caring upfront for some of the problems we have medically because, for people to have to go through that, it’s heartbreaking.

Thanks for reading, everybody. We’ve had over 600 hits on this blog by almost 300 different people. (So no, not all 600 hits were from me!) Remember to subscribe through the United Way's website and tell your friends. We want all of the people of Blount County to know where their United Way contributions go.

Blog you soon,
Dave Bennett