CU community members lead campaigns for United Way

Several members of the Cornell community are playing key roles in the 2002 United Way of Tompkins County campaign, on and off campus. Their efforts, which started last spring, are aimed at raising $1.8 million this fall. It is hoped that $560,000 of the countywide total will come from the Cornell campus campaign, which includes employees, retirees and students.

To date, $247,322 has been pledged from the Cornell community; that is 44.2 percent of this year's campus goal.

Carolyn Ainslie, vice president for planning and budget, is chairing the United Way campaign on campus. "Cornell has a long history of service and outreach in the community and United Way provides yet another way for all of us to be a part of this tradition," she said. "Each year, our campaign contributions go to support almost 100 programs through 30 United Way member agencies and 10 community councils."

Alumnus John Alexander '74, MBA '76, is the 2002 United Way county campaign chair. He also is a Cornell trustee, a member of the Cornell University Council and the university's Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise program executive board, and he is president of the locally based but international company CBORD Group Inc., the world's primary supplier of computer software systems for food and nutrition services.

"Federal and state funding to agencies in Tompkins County could be cut by over $1 million in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," said Alexander. "Without this funding, critical services that are necessary to maintaining our quality of life could be reduced or eliminated entirely. But it doesn't have to be that way. This year's $1.8 million United Way campaign will help to bridge the funding gap, but we won't make this goal unless each and every one of us pitches in. Please join your friends and neighbors this year to make our campaign a great success. Find the pledge card in your mail stack, make a gift and make it happen. This year, we all need to be a part of the United Way."

This year's campaign was launched with the sixth annual Day of Caring Sept. 5 and with a Cornell campus kickoff at the Johnson Museum of Art, Sept. 26.