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Staff Photo by Tim Barber/Chattanooga Times Free Press - Sep 8, 2010 - Day of Caring local volunteers from area Ace Hardware stores ready a community distribution center at the site of the old Farmer's Market potato warehouse at 700 E. 11th Street on Thursday. Ace Hardware employees from left are Mavis Knowles, Michael Bratcher, Todd Lenderman and Matt Lamon. The volunteers donated their time to construct shelving for the Gifts in Kind warehouse.
In the midst of an uncertain economy, officials with the United Way of Greater Chattanooga seek to raise $11.8 million and encourage volunteers to help others.
Bill Stacy, United Way’s campaign chairman, said Thursday that this year’s campaign is a chance for “Chattanoogans to say we can give about $12 million to ourselves to build stable lives, care for our most vulnerable and make kids healthy, safe and smart.”
Stacy is one of 400 volunteers who took part Thursday in United Way’s 21st annual Day of Caring. The workers did repairs, landscaping, building and painting for about 30 nonprofit organizations.
It’s one of many events the United Way hosts leading up to January’s campaign deadline.
The agency has about $3 million so far toward the $11.8 million goal, Stacy said.
“For the last couple of years, we’ve not been able to do as much as we wanted to do,” he said. “Now people are saying, ‘I give when I can and I think maybe I can this year.’”
Stacy, the former chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and former headmaster of Baylor School, talked with Ace Hardware employees Thursday while they built shelves for the Gifts in Kind Warehouse on 11th Street.
Ace Hardware manager Mavis Knowles said the company participates in the volunteer event every year because the community has given so much to it.
Before Ace Hardware stepped in to help organize things, people might have missed items in the warehouse because there weren’t enough places to showcase them, organizers said.
The Gifts In Kind Warehouse is one of the best-kept secrets in Chattanooga, said John Hayes, United Way’s director of building stable lives and 2-1-1.
The warehouse allows nonprofit member agencies to buy supplies at a minimal cost. For example, a $350 to $400 pressure washer could sell to a nonprofit agency for $30, he said.
And being a member agency doesn’t cost anything, he said, agencies just have to agree not to sell the products that they receive.
Other volunteers on Thursday installed a garden in the courtyard at Hospice of Chattanooga on Walker Road, re-sanded a playground at Little Miss Mag day care and built bird houses for clients at Signal Center.
Coca-Cola and Ace Hardware workers assembled rain barrels at the Tennessee Aquarium for students at Calvin Donaldson Environmental Science Academy. Coca-Cola brought the barrels and Ace provided the parts for assembly.
The barrels can be attached to a water hose for any landscaping purpose, said Thom Benson, aquarium public relations director.
Click here to vote in our daily poll: Did you participate in the United Way Day of Caring?
Yolanda Putman has been a reporter at the Times Free Press for 11 years. She covers housing and previously covered education and crime. Yolanda is a Chattanooga native who has a master’s degree in communication from the University of Tennessee and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Alabama State University. She previously worked at the Lima (Ohio) News. She enjoys running, reading and writing and is the mother of one son, Tyreese. She has also ...
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