In the Spirit of Giving

Northeastern Louisiana is a generous community, and the people who give play a vital role in the organizations they support.

ARTICLE BY MICHAEL DEVAULT

Talk to any employee of a nonprofit in northeast Louisiana, and they’ll share with you some version of the same message. The people in this region are remarkably generous, but there is still so much that needs to be done.

BayouLife reached out to the heads of just a few of the area’s many deserving nonprofits to discuss the people who give and how local philanthropy impacts those in need. These are just a few of the hundreds of organizations that are on the front lines battling poverty, assisting the sick and feeding the hungry. And the message from each was clear: without individuals, the work their organizations undertake would be that much harder.

“Philanthropy really is the heartbeat of our community,” says United Way president Janet Durden. “Our area really is one of the most generous, ever. It’s incredible how people have these passions and support their passions.”

That sentiment is expressed time and again–and regardless of the mission of the organization. From educational facilities like the Children’s Museum and the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum to ARCO, which provides vital assistance to persons with developmental disabilities, one thing is clear. People in this area know how to step up.

One place that’s evident is the Ronald McDonald House. Situated on South 3rd Street, just a few hundred yards from St. Francis Medical Center, the facility opened in 1985 to serve families of children in the hospital.

“The Ronald McDonald House is a home away from home for families with children in the hospital,” explains Georgia Street, the house’s Executive Director. “This building was originally a church, which we feel was kind of prophetic.”

When the church family was in the process of relocating to 165 North, they knew they wanted their former facility to remain in service of some kind. With its close proximity to the hospital, the building was a natural location for a Ronald McDonald House. The congregation was thrilled, Street says, and so are the guests, who appreciate the calm sense of peace that the Monroe house exudes.

“It’s a remarkable adventure, being able to help these families and see them overcome illnesses and struggles, to persevere and thrive,” Street says. That mission is possible, though, because the local community is dedicated to the mission.

Like many other charities with a national brand presence, the Ronald McDonald House receives no direct support from the McDonald’s Corporation. Instead, the money to fund all of the house’s operations, facility expenses, and guest care is generated locally.

“You do your own fundraising,” Street says. “It requires the support of your own, local McDonald’s restaurants.”

That’s not to say the parent company doesn’t provide any assistance. Each McDonald’s in the region is home to numerous change boxes, the ubiquitous depositories for loose change at each of the registers. Local McDonald’s restaurants also provide support through McHappy Day, during which a percentage of sales of Happy Meals comes back to the local Ronald McDonald House.

“We get great support from McDonald’s, but we do have to do our own fundraising,” Street says. That can be surprising to some, who often think that the money for the house comes from outside the community. That’s simply not the case, Street says, and every single donation helps–no matter how small.

That’s a message ARCO’s Roma Kidd echoes. For at least the past ten years, ARCO has faced a unique challenge. State coffers have shrunken, but the cost of services the organization provides have continued to increase. ARCO provides a host of services to persons with developmental disabilities, all of which revolve around the organization’s mission–to empower individuals with developmental disabilities and their families to have quality lives through instruction, support and opportunity.
Some of the services ARCO provides, such as direct care, are partially funded through government programs, like Medicaid and Louisiana Workforce Development. The state’s Department of Transportation also has a hand in assisting ARCO’s mission by providing vehicles and some assistance paying for transportation for ARCO clients. However, ARCO’s primary revenue comes via the Medicaid program, and therein lies the challenge, as Kidd explains.

“Our services have been stuck with rates that are less than they were in 2008,” Kidd says. That’s where local donations come in and help bridge the gap. “So, we are alive today because of philanthropy. It has been the good will and the giving of community leaders and friends that have allowed ARCO to stay afloat through what has been a period of austere funding from the state.”

Cuts in state funding have meant that ARCO is competing in an ever-challenging landscape for employees, particularly the caregivers who deliver their services. Caregivers make roughly $8 an hour, yet ARCO finds itself competing in a market for workers in which a retail establishment may offer, $11 or $12 an hour. Consequently, turnover is quite high.

Every dollar ARCO receives is just one more resource with which the organization can continue to provide support to its clients while also working to provide quality employment growth and opportunity to its staff. That’s why individual giving is so critical.

“I’m always amazed at the number of individuals who provide financial support to ARCO,” Kidd says, adding that the donations they receive span a wide range. “That’s from someone who gives $5 a year to those individuals who give significantly more than that. It’s the money we depend on.”

In order to compete in the current economic climate, where wages for even unskilled labor are rising steeply and rapidly, Kidd estimates the organization needs the ability to provide roughly $2 an hour more for each of its more than 100 caregivers. Over the course of the year, those costs would easily top $500,000. However, Kidd points out that every dollar helps.

An individual pledge of just $24 a year, for example, can make a difference. That contribution is enough to fund the needed pay raise for 12 hours of a single worker’s year–roughly one hour’s worth of raises per month for that employee. That’s a direct impact, even if it’s a small one. But, Kidd notes that the area’s generosity doesn’t stop with individuals. Businesses, too, are big on supporting the region’s most needy.

“Businesses have been and continue to be generous to look after the individuals of need in this community,” Kidd says. “Behind every business is a person or persons who make decisions about how to support the community as a whole. Businesses that give understand that, in order for their business to be healthy, the whole community needs to be healthy.”

Durden agrees. She notes that through both individual giving to United Way through workplace payroll deduction, individuals are contributing to these organizations. But, she also notes, that many employers also provide direct support to the United Way and other nonprofits in the community, and the impact of those resources is immeasurable, both on the individual and corporate levels.

“They care so much about their friends and neighbors that they want to help others,” Durden says. “We see people giving $10 a month, because that’s how much they make an hour. We also see people giving thousands of dollars annually. But, regardless of the amount of the gift, the heartbeat is, I believe, a person who really cares–and cares about our community.”

Charitable giving doesn’t stop with service organizations like ARCO or the Ronald McDonald House. Nor does it end with umbrella groups, such as the United Way. Countless other charities exist that bring enrichment to the lives of residents across the region. Consider the work of two such organizations, the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum and the Northeast Louisiana Children’s Museum.

Both organizations exist primarily as educational and enrichment activities for visitors. However, at the heart of both of these facilities is a much deeper service mission to educate and edify the communities they serve.

Chennault Aviation CEO Nell Calloway notes that the aviation museum is not just about having a place to look at airplanes or learn about the contributions the area’s veterans have made to the country. It’s also a place where local veterans can turn for services and support–and a way for the community to express its appreciation for the sacrifices veterans have made.
“I tell visitors our main mission is that we’re about the past, the present and the future,” Calloway says. “We’re about the past, because we honor the men and women who served our country–the history. We’re about the present, because we want to serve and support the men and women who are in our military, serving overseas, and to be there as they come home to help reintegrate them into civilian life. And we’re about the future, with education programs to inspire our youth to pick up the banner and fight for freedom in the future.”

While the museum is best known as a repository of artifacts from the nation’s wars and servicemembers, Calloway notes it’s also a vital link in the services provided to veterans. Just one example are the post-traumatic stress disorder clinics the museum hosts every other week. Led by a Ph.D.-credentialed psychologist, the group sessions offer support for military men and women who suffer from PTSD, regardless of when they served.

“It’s growing, and we’re starting to receive some of the people who’ve been engaged in the most-recent conflicts,” Calloway says, underscoring the timeliness of the program.

The Chennault Aviation and Historical Museum is also home to the Gen. Clair Chennault Chapter of the Disabled American Veterans Association, or DAV. Each month, the museum’s chapter meets. They’ve also established a van service to help veterans get to much-needed care at the Veterans Administration hospital in Jackson.

All of those programs cost money, and much of that money comes from visitors to the museum and the members who support ongoing operations at the facility. Calloway points out that participatory philanthropy is important to the museum’s mission.

Put another way, just the simple act of paying a membership fee or buying a ticket to a special event helps make sure an important community organization is still there for the next generation. That’s what Northeast Louisiana Children’s Museum executive director Melissa Saye tries to explain to visitors.

“People show up,” she says, reiterating one of the most important contributions the community as a whole makes to the Children’s Museum. “Those individuals buy tickets. They book school trips. They have parties at the museum. All of that is a form of giving that helps keep the doors open.”

Where experiencing the sacrifice and patriotism of our nation’s service members is the goal of visitors to the Chennault Museum, visiting the Children’s Museum is all about educational opportunities for the whole family.

“The Children’s Museum is a place where kids and their families come and learn and have some fun together,” Saye says. The museum is at once educational and enriches the family. “It’s a great place to come for some quality family time, while we sneak the educational part in as a bonus.”

For a former school teacher–Saye taught first and second grade before coming to the museum–that’s a huge bonus. The community’s ongoing support through ticket purchases, individual donations and corporate sponsorships is what has helped the organization maintain a level of service and quality for the last ten years. In fact, the cost of a student attending a school group event at the Northeast Louisiana Children’s Museum has only increased a dollar since the facility opened.
That’s where institutional giving comes back into the picture, Saye notes. Corporations and groups underwrite exhibits and events through sponsorships. One example is Santa’s Christmas Village.

“Quite a bit of that funding comes through sponsorships,” Saye says. “The other portion comes through admissions from people who come through during the month-long event.”

During the last Christmas season, the museum hosted more than 12,000 visitors to the Christmas Village. Because of corporate sponsorships of the exhibition, much of the admissions went back into the museum. It’s sponsorships like these that Saye believes holds the key to continued improvements at the facility.

Right now, the Children’s Museum is looking for sponsors to underwrite a new permanent exhibit, called Brain Teasers. Targeted at children ages 6-9, Saye says the new exhibit fills an important gap in the organization’s audience, giving older children an activity for when their younger siblings are engaged elsewhere. To fully underwrite the new exhibit, Saye says they need to raise $10,000. She’s confident that the generosity of the community will mean they’ll reach that goal.

Whether it’s through a corporate sponsorship, payroll deduction or writing a check, the region’s generous spirit continues to drive much of what happens. And these organizations are giving back, paying dividends back into the community through a richer, fuller quality of life and through countless activities that people can take part in.
Events such as the Ronald McDonald House’s Big Bass Fishing Tournament, the Children’s Museum’s Santa’s Christmas Village, and hundreds of other events bring with them an awareness of the need, and a wealth of attention to the missions of these organizations. And through participating in these events, perhaps the biggest contribution people can make is the time they’re giving to the organizations they support.

For the clients of ARCO, that means something quite particular, as Kidd points out. Or, as she puts it, people in the area making the biggest impact not with their dollars, but by “simply participating with our participants.”

Making them a place on the street where they live, that’s the most important gift anyone can give our folks,” Kidd says. “We see it all the time, every day. The big philanthropy is what we give in terms of acceptance of each other.”