T he doctor, heal thyself line came to mind in hearing the story of the plight of the United Way of Southeast Arkansas.
The most significant nonprofit in the city, known for raising money for scads of other nonprofits, is itself hurting. While many people are familiar with the groan associated with being told their home or work air-conditioning or heating system or both are kaput, as well as the sizable cost of replacing it or them, few would know what to do with a bill of more than a million dollars.
As the story goes, when the United Way board was dealing with the Reynolds Foundation years ago as the foundation was working to give the agency a new community services center, the foundation insisted on the greenest of green footprints — meaning they wanted a geothermal HVAC system. The way that system is described is that groundwater is used to circulate through the inside units to heat and cool the building at a greatly reduced cost.
And so it was.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
But the new system was fraught with problems and started to fail after just a few years.
Fast forward to today and the clock is ticking down on that system, which provides hot and cold air to what may be the most striking architectural structure in town.
As new director Jason Duren put it, the system is going to fail, sooner rather than later, and getting it repaired is imperative. Otherwise, numerous nonprofit agencies will be unable to operate, and the service to the people those agencies help will be interrupted.
The fix is not another geothermal system, but it is a high-efficiency system that will keep costs down for the nonprofits that rent space at the building. The cost is estimated to be $1.2 million, but by the time the work is done, no one would be surprised if the tab wasn’t higher.
And like with almost all expensive home repairs, the timing is bad. Duren said the pandemic depleted the agency’s endowment — something they are working to replenish. That means that as they have one hat out collecting somewhere around a million for the agencies they serve, the United Way has another hat out hoping to collect money for the repair project.
That is a tall order. The United Way met its annual fundraising goal of a million for more than 30 years. But times are tougher now. The Pine Bluff population isn’t what it used to be, nor is the makeup of the business community. And now another chunk of money is needed. Think of it as conducting two fundraising campaigns at once.
Duren said he’s been talking to big foundations about getting a grant. They’re listening, he said, but they also want to see some local skin in the game. That will mean the power players will need to step up to show the community is still committed to the job performed by the United Way.
We don’t doubt for a minute that such an effort won’t take place and be successful. But like those home repairs, this problem really needs to be handled quickly.
A lot of pluses for the city ride on the success of the United Way. They handle that each year and make it look easy. Now, however, is the time to stand tall for the United Way itself because this is a problem that just isn’t going away.