United Way meeting highlights dedication to early education
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on March 1, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Glen Phillips presents the Emil Rosenthal Volunteer of the Year Award to his sister-in-law Donna Phillips Wednesday morning at First Baptist Church. Glen is a past winner of the award.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Keynote speaker William Millett speaks about early childhood education during the annual United Way of Wayne County meeting Wednesday.
Complacency toward education has left the United States behind other countries and created a workforce lacking in critical thinking and literacy skills, speaker William Millett said at the United Way of Wayne County annual meeting Wednesday.
Organizations like United Wayne, with their dedication to early childhood education, are key to fixing the problem, he said.
Early education, especially in literacy and critical thinking, is vital in building the foundation for a workforce which can take initiative, be creative and cement the U.S. as a global leader in the fields of science and technology.
Millett lauded United Wayne for its people-centric approach to fundraising.
"This is not a typical United Way, take that as a compliment," he said. "When most people in the country think of United Way, what do they think of? Money, money, money."
Millett flipped through several slides of other United Way fundraising efforts. Each had a slider for how much money the group had raised, until Millett arrived at the Wayne County chapter. There, the slider showed a goal for "lives improved," instead of money raised, which Millett said was an indication of United Wayne's focus on what to do with money raised, not just the act of raising it.
"The billboard here doesn't even mention money, it's focused on the impact, on the difference that you're making," he said. "I cannot tell you how different that is from most United Ways. They're all about raising money, they consider it a success if they raise money. The ultimate question though is 'what do you do with it?'"
Millett said that a lack of strong leadership has led North Carolina, and the nation as a whole, to devalue strong early education, which has in turn caused the country to slip behind other nations in student performance.
"Right now we have the U.S. secretary of education, one of the most incompetent, lousy appointments in my lifetime. I'm familiar with her work in Michigan which basically sabotaged public education," he said. "At the North Carolina Department of Education, we have a secretary who said last month that $35,000 a year is pretty good money. Do you think you're going to attract quality educators for $35,000 a year?"
A local focus on early education is vital to overcome those barriers, Millett said, and United Wayne is going the extra mile to involve the public and business communities in providing that education.
After Millett spoke, the focus on early education continued with the presentation of the Emil Rosenthal Volunteer of the Year Award. The award went to Donna Phillips, director of the Wayne County Public Library, for her work in promoting childhood literacy. Tearing up as she recalled her struggles to become a mother, she recounted a promise she made to her infant son after she adopted him.
"I promised him that I would do everything in my power to make his life good and whole. But I also promised him that he was not the only child, and that there were other children in this world that needed me too," she said.
"And that's what I've tried to do with my life, and that's what you all do with your lives."