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"Giving Where We're Living" is theme of 2002 SEFA campaign
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
All was right in the world of Richard Gallagher. Until 8:45 a.m. that day 10 years ago last May, when his youngest son, Ricky, phoned him at work to tell him that his daughter, Christine, had killed herself in the family's garage.
"Just think if all of a sudden you received a call like that," Gallagher, executive director of Alcohol and Drug Dependency Services, asked those attending the annual campaign kickoff of the State Employees Federated Appeal (SEFA) held yesterday. "It's a tremendous, tremendous trauma you go through."
He said that following the death of his daughter, who had suffered from alcoholism and had tried suicide twice before but appeared to be doing well six years later, his wife and their two sons were "physically walking and talking, but mentally we needed some help."
The Gallaghers turned to the United Way, which sent them to Life Transitions, a member agency. Life Transitions "helped us get through the trauma and get in the direction we wanted to go," said Gallagher, who tells his family's heart-rendering story on the United Way's campaign videotape.
Gallagher was one of several speakers who addressed unit liaisons assembled yesterday in the Center for the Arts Atrium. The liaisons—faculty and staff members who volunteer to lead campaign efforts in their individual units—gathered to pick up campaign materials and learn more about how money raised during the campaign makes a difference to local agencies and organizations supported by SEFA and the United Way.
UB's goal for this year's SEFA campaign, which is being chaired by Mecca Cranley, dean of the School of Nursing, is $750,000. The campaign raised $795,196 last year, more than $70,000 above the goal of $725,000.
The official theme of this year's campaign is "Giving Where We're Living," a theme taken up by Erie County Sheriff Patrick Gallivan, who is chairing the United Way campaign in Erie County with his wife, Mary Pat. Gallivan stressed the importance of community to the campaign.
The campaign, he said, "is not about money; it's about people, helping people like Dick Gallagher, like his family."
Although some may feel it's the role of government to assist people in times of trouble, "the reality is that government money is shrinking, and will continue to do so," he said.
"What's left?" he asked. "What's left is us, all of us; we're all part of a community."
Gallivan took the community theme a step farther, noting that the recent arrests of suspected terrorists in Lackawanna were due, in large part, to members of the Muslim community who alerted authorities a year ago "that something was not right."
"They cared about their community," Gallivan noted. "We're all part of the larger Erie County and Western New York communities; we're all in this together. It's our civic responsibility to pay attention to what's happening in our neighborhoods," he said, whether it's the domestic violence going on next door or drug dealing happening on the street corner, or giving to the SEFA or United Way campaigns.
Arlene Kaukas, president of the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, praised the UB community for its past generosity in SEFA campaigns, noting that the average gift in last year's campaign was $250. "When you gave, you may not have had in mind whose life you impacted in making the gift—that's the real power of giving and generosity," she said. "You're making a huge difference every day in Western New York."
President William R. Greiner echoed Kaukas' sentiments, pointing out that UB has "an extraordinary record of great success" in SEFA campaigns.
UB, he said, is the leading institutional giver to the United Way campaign in Erie County and is one of the leading institutional givers to United Way campaigns nationwide.
"This is where we live and this is a place where we should give," he said.
For more information on UB's SEFA campaign, go to http://wings.buffalo.edu/sefa/2002.