Executive director Valerie Orshal Hunt has hit the ground running during her first three days leading the agency.
By BETH N. GRAY
Published June 4, 2004
BROOKSVILLE - She was meeting with staff and service partners, planning for a fundraising campaign beginning Sept. 1, and doing paperwork.
Just three days into her new job as executive director of United Way of Hernando County, Valerie Orshal Hunt already found out what it means to be in charge.
Hunt, who served for 31/2 years as program coordinator for the agency under director Penny Zaphel, assumed the top post on Monday. Last month, Zaphel left to take a job as director of volunteers at Citrus Memorial Hospital.
United Way president Burt Harres said the 21-member board considered looking outside for an executive director. But Hunt had been doing a fine job, Harres said. She had worked very closely with Zaphel, who recommended hiring her for the leadership position, Harres added.
"We felt we had a person already on staff who was qualified, capable and could step right in," he continued. "We felt the transition would be good and the agencies we work with would not see any interruption in services or quality of service."
Independently, Hunt and Harres both mentioned her proudest achievements in programming as organizing the local annual Day of Caring and the U.S. Postal Service food drive. Both programs, initiated by Zaphel and Hunt, started three years ago.
The Day of Caring has rallied volunteers to spend a day landscaping, making minor home repairs and painting home exteriors for the elderly, the disabled and the needy.
It began with 40 volunteers and grew last year to 250 volunteers completing 110 projects in three neighborhoods around Hernando County.
"This is a wonderful, giving community," Hunt said.
The food drive last month, in which Postal Service employees collected foodstuffs solicited at mail boxes, collected 212,000 pounds of goods that benefited 14 food banks in Hernando. In its first year, the collection netted 40,000 pounds of food, Hunt noted.
With 25 years of experience working for nonprofit agencies, Hunt, 49, said her biggest challenge is to let residents know what the United Way does and to get people and businesses to support the agency with time and money.
"Our United Way really takes on the philosophy (that) what matters is the community, to build relationships in the community and find where needs are," she said.
The annual fundraising campaign that will allocate donations to more than 20 agencies in Hernando will be launched Sept. 1. United Way targets for financial assistance four areas of help: youth and family, seniors, health and rehabilitation, emergency services.
Hunt was designing and writing promotional brochures for the upcoming campaign this week. The Hernando agency traditionally doesn't set a fundraising goal but aims to increase the previous year's giving. Last year's campaign raised more than $650,000.
Hunt supervises an office staff of three, but United Way programs draw in "hundreds of volunteers," whose efforts she must organize, she said.
WHERE TO CALL
For information on United Way of Hernando County, phone 688-2026.
