Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 816. It's FLX Morning Monday. It's time for a regular monthly visit with Rhonda Jasper, United Way of Seneca County. The website is uwseneca.org. Good morning and welcome back.
Rhonda Jasper: Good morning, how are you?
Paul Szmal: I'm doing well. We've got campaign news to talk about. Of course, we have values of the month to begin with, and next Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. There are observances in communities all across the Finger Lakes. So our value for January, respect and equality and social justice.
Rhonda Jasper: Yes, so the value outlines high value on promoting equality and reducing hunger and poverty, but definitely adults modeling this for kids. I know we talk about it every month, but modeling respect in our own words and actions, starting family traditions about volunteering and working in your community. You know, as a family, discuss equality and social justice. Make it a regular conversation. I know sometimes we think our kids don't listen to what we say, but they do, and they say in surveys that they want their parents to guide them and help them with things like this.
Paul Szmal: They do. We had our middle school summit, and again, the kids are saying they want that kind of direction. They want that kind of, you know, comfort around them, but not only are they listening to what we're telling them, they are watching and soaking up everything we do, even when you think they're not there. Our value for February, we'll talk more about it next month, but of course it's Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, President's Day, so it's just to do the right thing and being honest. So more on that coming up next month.
The campaign is well underway. How are we doing so far?
Rhonda Jasper: Good. We are currently at 83%.
Paul Szmal: All right, and we have the form that explains a little bit about donating, and it's never too much to repeat this. First thing is that even if you don't have a lot, a little bit goes a long way. Remind us about that dollar a week for one year figure.
Rhonda Jasper: Sure. So if every household in Seneca County gave us one dollar a week for the entire year, we would more than double our current budget.
Paul Szmal: And here's another thing. I don't know that we've necessarily talked about this very much, and that is that some of the agencies you fund are multi-county agencies, because some people say, well why do I want to give to United Way? I can give to my favorite charities directly. But if you give to one that operates in multi-counties, that money is going to be spent in multi-counties. If you want it to stay local in Seneca County, you can donate to that agency through United Way.
Rhonda Jasper: Exactly. The two examples I always use that are ones most people recognize are Safe Harbors of the Finger Lakes. Fantastic organization. I would never discourage anyone from donating to them however you can. But yes, if you write a check directly to them, it's going to cover all their amazing programs across all the counties they serve. If you donate to the United Way of Seneca County and designate it to Safe Harbors, it goes into a special account that's just accessible for Seneca County residents who need it for, you know, whatever they need to be able to establish and maintain their independence, be it lock changes or moving or whatever it is. But it's definitely set aside so it can only be accessed by their workers for Seneca County residents.
Paul Szmal: I was going to say the same with Family Counseling Services of the Finger Lakes, another one. They serve multiple counties, but ours is the only one that you can actually donate directly to a sliding scale fee for Seneca County residents who otherwise couldn't access their services. And again, your donations, the donation of cash is very flexible. I was talking about this earlier today when people say, okay, how can we help the victims of the fires? I always say donate to the Red Cross and donate cash because they can spend that money in the local area. They can spend it on exactly what's needed. An example in United Way is in the early days of COVID, Seneca County public health officials called up and said we need masks and you were able to put a mask project into place very quickly.
Rhonda Jasper: Yes, and the nice thing about having dollars is that, like cash donations, is that because we're so flexible, we can respond in real time when others can't. So, for example, we have a lot of funding that comes through grants, which is fantastic. I mean, it supports a lot of the work we do here, but there are very specific rules and regulations with each grant. So we can't necessarily veer off the path that we're on, but when we have straight donations to us, then we can say, oh wait, we have the resources to be able to respond to the county who needs it right now. So it definitely gives us a little more freedom to be able to respond to the needs of Seneca County in real time, which is fantastic.
Paul Szmal: And it goes along with what I say, you know, you definitely should research where you're sending your donations. You know, they're your hard-earned dollars and you want to make sure that they're actually going towards what you want them to. So do some research. If you can't trust the agency you're donating to to figure out the best place for those dollars to go, well, then you either need to learn more about them or make a connection with them, you know, or even find a different place to donate. You just want to make sure that your donations are going where you want them to.
Oh, I apologize if we've talked about this, but I don't remember talking about it. It's a new look on the website, uwseneca.org.
Rhonda Jasper: Yes, we're definitely trying to make sure that everyone realizes that while the United Ways, of course, are all absolutely connected, we all have a lot in common as members of Worldwide and whatnot, but when it gets down to it, every single United Way is very different. We're a small United Way, so, you know, while we share logos with the larger ones, it's an entirely different operation here being able to be right here in Seneca County. And what we realized is really it's our connections to the community. It's the people that we have working for us and volunteering for us. We're all Seneca County residents, and we really wanted to make sure that our United Way pieces stood out and and were obvious as our own.
Paul Szmal: You have coming up a week from Saturday on the 25th, you have a free Veterans Salute event. It's open to the public, fostering community through social connections. It's Saturday, January 25th, 9 to noon, Seneca Falls Recreation Center. And tell us about the Dwyer Program.
Rhonda Jasper: So the Dwyer Program is a funding program that actually goes through the Seneca County Veteran Services. So they, of course, have more details as far as all of that, but they're able to do programs such as this. Open to all community members, but we'll have some suicide prevention training pieces there. There'll be some basic disaster preparation and resiliency training pieces. We'll have hands-on CPR, of course NARCAN training and free NARCAN. So definitely, you know, we're trying to make sure that the community is supported, but if we can do that while supporting our veterans, we'll always do that. So again, it's geared toward veterans, but open to everybody, and it's all free.
Paul Szmal: Saturday, January 25th, 9 to noon at the Seneca Falls Recreation Center. We're counting down toward the Taste of Spring. Remind us what's happening Thursday, May 15th at Del Lago.
Rhonda Jasper: Of course. So this year will be our 2025 Taste of Spring, and we are going to celebrate it. It's your birthday, so come and join a giant birthday party. It is everybody who comes will celebrate it as your birthday, so we're excited about that. I think it's because when I look at the staff, we all have summer or holiday birthdays, so none of us got to like celebrate them in school, and I think it really messed with us. So we're doing a birthday party for everybody this year. But yes, we'll have all our local vendors, we'll have all the goodies, we'll have music, you know, all the things you have to look forward to every year at Taste of Spring. So mark down that date and don't miss it, May 15th.
Paul Szmal: And I mean, it's just, there's always great food and drink there. I've been talking with people around the Finger Lakes. When I came here 20 years ago, it was all about wine, and it took a few years for the food scene to catch up, but it has.
Rhonda Jasper: Oh, wine, food, now we've got desserts, and there's of course cheese and ice cream, so specific foods. But we've got cider and, you know, craft beer, and we even have liquor now. So, you know, a little of everything for everybody.
Paul Szmal: We've got a new Narcan vending machine coming in very soon. It'll be installed at CarQuest in Ovid. That's exciting news.
Rhonda Jasper: Yes, it's getting delivered this week. I'm not entirely sure on the schedule of getting it up and running, but there'll be announcements as soon as we're ready. It is a fantastic, brand-new, beautiful machine that we're actually getting donated and supported through a program in New York State, although it is United Way funded as well. And so we will have local funding and we'll be responsible for it, but it's high-tech. We even get a note when it's low. We're pretty excited, but we'll be keeping that completely filled, and it'll be open 24 hours a day, accessible to absolutely anyone who needs it.
Paul Szmal: Of course, we've talked about Coalitions United and the work you do in drug abuse and in suicide prevention and everything, and I don't know if you've seen figures lately for Seneca County, but I had the Keuka County Sheriff on last Thursday, and beginning to see a pretty significant downturn in overdoses.
Rhonda Jasper: We are, yeah, across the board. It's been really good, and we don't know if it's an awareness thing or an access to Narcan, but it's definitely something that the more rural communities are catching up on. I think awareness is a huge part of it, so we'll continue to work on that, but really knowing the dangers of it and being prepared in case you need to be.
Paul Szmal: All right, the Dwyer Veterans Program, Saturday January 25th, 9 to noon, Seneca Falls Rec Center, free, open to the public, Taste of Spring, Thursday, May 15th at Del Lago, and uwseneca.org. Still plenty of time to make your dollars work here locally with a campaign donation. Rhonda, thanks for the great work as always, and thanks for your time.
Rhonda Jasper: Thank you so much.
