AT&T, workers raise $50K for United Way
By Steve Herring
Published in News on February 3, 2011 1:46 PM
Full Size
News-Argus/MICHAEL K. DAKOTA
From left, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, AT&T's Vanessa Harrison, Chairman of the 2010-11 United Way campaign Lynn Williams, Executive Director of United Way Steve Parr and Goldsboro Mayor Al King celebrate a $10,777 donation from AT&T and a $40,000 donation from AT&T employees.
Donations totaling almost $51,000 from AT&T and employees at its Goldsboro Call Center were presented Wednesday morning to United Way of Wayne County.
Employees at the call center, as well as other AT&T employees who live in Goldsboro, raised $40,093 for United Way, and AT&T made a corporate gift of $10,777.
"Their gift was an amazing gift and what they did, to me, was as important as the money was just the enthusiasm and the passion in what they did and what they do for the community year round," said Lynn Williams, United Way campaign chairman. "To me that is just a wonderful combination.
"They are really excited about being part of the community and part of United Way. It was a huge shot in the arm for us at the time that it came in."
The amount was included in the already announced total, she said.
"We will wind up finishing close to what we did last year," she said. "The totals will be announced in February. Last year we were about $1,250,000 and I think we are at $1,230,000. For the economy that we have and the difficulties we have had, I am very pleased with how it turned out."
Speaking to employees Mrs. Williams said that one of the great things about being campaign chairman was the opportunity to meet people and the folks who were "excited and passionate" about what they do and about the community.
Tim Tierney, a customer service manager at the call center along with community project managers Deborah Nacca and Danielle Boyd, headed up employee fundraising efforts.
"We are really excited. We led the former BellSouth in regards for the DSL techno support centers," he said. "We had over 50 percent (employee) participation in the United Way campaign. We are very excited that our agents were excited enough about the community to share what they have through this campaign. The primary was the actual campaign itself, agents giving per check, each paycheck having a little bit of it go to United Way.
"We also did a fundraising drive. You always want to be a credit to your community and our employees reached out to us and said how can we better help the community? We are very grateful for the position that we are in, and any time we have an opportunity to serve the community, they have jumped great distances in order to make it happen. Any drive we do, be it the food drive or the blood drive, we always have an abundance of participation because that is the culture that we foster. It is the employees of AT&T in Goldsboro that are the driving force."
During the presentation Tierney said that AT&T employees are a part of this community.
"We want to let everyone know with United Way that we are here to be a betterment to our community in every thing that we do," he said. "Any type of project we do is in thought of our neighbors. This merely a commitment for right now we will continue to give our talent, our talents and our money to help our fellow neighbors."