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From pocket change to life change ... You can help the needy

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Connie L. Bias
  • 92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  You'd be amazed at what a buck can do.

It won't buy your lunch, and maybe not even your morning coffee, but it will supply more than 150 pounds of food for hungry families ... so they can eat, too.

It can't cover your child's daycare bill, but it can train two volunteer scout leaders ... so other kids can have a positive mentor and safe environment, too.

It certainly doesn't pay for your cell phone, internet subscription, day planner, alarm clock, or any of the other tools that keep you going through the day, but it does fund talking watches for two blind people ... so they can keep going, too.

And that's just one dollar per paycheck. Imagine what five or ten dollars could do.

You can change a person's life with your pocket change. Keep a family in their house through rental assistance. Allow parents to work through subsidized childcare. Send a pregnant woman to drug abuse counseling so her baby is born drug free. Really change a life.

Right now, offering such critical help to others is easy. The Combined Federal Campaign, which is the largest workplace charity campaign in the United States, began Sept. 1 and is tentatively scheduled to start Oct. 1 at Fairchild. The campaign will run here through mid-November, and allows military and civilian personnel to donate via cash, check or pay allotment to their choice of thousands of nonprofit organizations around the country. Last year, federal employees and military personnel donated more than $271.6 million to the CFC. Representatives at Fairchild are currently training and gearing up for a successful local 2007 campaign.

"In the next week, I'm having a meeting with the CFC group coordinators so we can address how we're going to approach the CFC campaign this year, to make sure we're all on the same page," said Maj. Scott Linck, 92nd Air Refueling Wing CFC representative. "It's there that I'll be able to tell them how important their impact is, not only here on the base, but in the community."

Once October hits, everyone on the base can expect a visit from their CFC coordinator; the major's goal is 100-percent employee contact for the campaign. That contact, he said, will be personal.

"By 100-percent contact, I don't mean we'll throw the CFC leaflets in the middle of a table in the break room," he said. "I mean going up to a person and really conveying energy for the giving part of the CFC - showing them what kind of impact they can have with just a small contribution on families who are in need. That's how the message is going to get to the individual here at Fairchild, and hopefully that will energize people to give."

That energy will start with Maj. Linck himself. After he was chosen to lead the drive at Fairchild and delved into CFC research and information, the major began to see how much can be accomplished with so little.

"I had no idea. I was one of those who didn't give consistently in the past, and now I'm starting to understand how important it would have been for me to do so," he said. "It's changing my view of how it all works, of the interaction between the CFC and the community. If we all just gave a little bit, it would be so much easier for everybody else."

The major went on to stress that contributors control their donations entirely; money goes only where you specify. You can choose to contribute to the CFC in general, which means your money will be spread evenly throughout all of the nonprofit organizations listed, or you can choose specific organizations, right down to local organizations in the local area. Nonprofit organizations are listed at www.inwcfc.org and the CFC website is www.opm.gov/cfc; at these sites you can find information about each organization, their mission, and how and upon whom they spend their money.

And then you can pull that wrinkled dollar out of your pocket, or find those four quarters in the back seat of your car, and do something amazing with a buck.