Here to Help, Springfield

United Way’s ‘Days of Caring’ a perpetual inspiration for volunteers

SPRINGFIELD — Life is like the yellow brick road, as Alma Fumiko Hesus described. It is a paved path for some people, but there are holes and challenges for others. 

“As we go down that pathway, to me, we should all be laying more bricks down,” Hesus said as an analogy to explain how to support the generations after herself. 

Hesus said she has a passion for nonprofit work and supporting her community, so she enjoys her role as the United Way of Lane County’s VP of Resource Development. She has been at United Way for nine years and is starting to see the organization’s volunteer engagement return to pre-pandemic levels.

United Way of Lane County works to connect nonprofits with volunteers, grants, businesses, and community members to “mobilize communities to action so all can thrive,” as stated in their motto. 

One of their most significant community-wide events is the Days of Caring, which United Way has hosted for the last 31 years. It is an annual opportunity for its organization to mobilize volunteers to serve its community. This year, about 800 volunteers served 60 different projects and 29 different nonprofit agencies in Lane County, Hesus said. 

This year’s volunteers provided over 2,900 service hours, estimated to be worth over $100,000.  

In Springfield, one of those opportunities was restoring books with SMART Reading. Nineteen volunteers from businesses such as PenFed Credit Union, Pape Group, Lane County, Weyerhauser Lumber, and Umpqua Bank sat in the Springfield Public Library erasing pencil marks and removing permanent marker stains from books to donate to children across the county. 

The Springfield Public Library hosted 19 volunteers to help clean and restore books that will be donated to children in the community. TATUM STUART / CHRONICLE PHOTO

“It’s a way for us to get out of the office and give back,” said Cathie Campbell, Branch Manager of the Junction City Umpqua Bank. 

Marie Fidler, Regional Manager for Umpqua Bank, said that Umpqua pays their employees 40 hours a year to participate in volunteer opportunities. Fiddler said that many of the associates who started at Umpqua had never volunteered in the past and were hesitant at first. Fidler said many associates can have great experiences and continue volunteering because of the paid opportunity. “It’s helping to make sure (Umpqua associates) understand how important it is,” said Fidler, explaining the importance of the paid volunteer time program. 

“It’s the reason I work for them,” Campbell said. Campbell explained that although this was her first time participating in Days of Caring through Umpqua, she used to work for Habitat for Humanity and understands the importance of volunteering for nonprofit organizations. 

“Nonprofits struggle to find volunteers,” Campbell said. “Putting together this many people in one room, it’s a big deal.” 

Fidler, Campbell, and Pikake Unger — VP of Regional Client Solutions for Umpqua — agreed they enjoyed learning and volunteering for the SMART Reading program. They were astonished to learn that having one book in the house could increase a child’s likelihood of higher education and that summer reading can be more impactful than summer school. 

Besides the book restoration, United Way helped support events such as land preservation projects with McKenzie River Trust, preparation for the holiday gift drive with United Way’s Black Early Learning program, the Community Sharing Program in Cottage Grove, a tree planting at Jasper Park with the City of Springfield environmental services division, and a work party with Friends of Buford Park on Mt Pisgah. 

Although Hesus said 800 volunteers were almost back up to pre-pandemic numbers this year, hundreds of spots remained unfilled.

“This was the biggest number of volunteer needs we’ve seen in at least 10 years,” Hesus said. The total number of available spots was almost 1,900. 

Hesus explains that it is hard to fill every spot since they have only one person in charge of the Days of Caring. But Hesus said they are already working on finding more ways to reach people, including hiring more staff. 

Hesus said that as much as United Way appreciates its business partners, it also wants to encourage individual engagement from community members. 

“We’re trying to get more folks to realize you can connect with us alone. You don’t have to be part of a business,” she said. 

Lane County has the most nonprofits per capita in the nation, Hesus said. So there is always a need for “time, talent, or treasure,” she said. 

However, as United Way progresses and grows, Hesus said they hope to help local nonprofits consolidate to share resources and get the most grant money available. 

“I’m an auntie, and I feel like everybody deserves an auntie that’s gonna be like, I got your back,” Hesus said. “We should always be working to make it a little bit. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but a little better for the next (generation).”

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