Lighthouse in the storm: How United Way meets Anderson County's needs

In the annual report for the United Way of Anderson, Campbell, Morgan and Scott counties, board chair Ryan Overton called Executive Director Naomi Asher “a lighthouse in the storm” because of her “steadfast leadership and unwavering commitment to our mission.”

The mission focuses on fostering youth development, self-sufficiency (e.g., helping people achieve incomes higher than the costs of living) and improved health and services for Anderson County's senior adults, 38% of whom are living with a disability.

Asher, who is also president of the United Ways of Tennessee, recently described the socioeconomic “storm” in Anderson County and United Way’s successes in bringing light and hope during a class she taught for the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning (ORICL).

ALICE does live here

In Anderson County, “Sixty percent of the population, or significantly over half of our county, is either barely making it or not making it, and mental health needs are at an all-time high,” Asher said. She noted that 20% of the residents are living in poverty and that 40% have low-wage jobs and often children they struggle to support as the costs of living rise. They are described as ALICE – asset-limited, income-constrained, employed.

Some 23% of the children in Anderson County are living in poverty, and more and more children are battling depression and anxiety, as well as attempting or thinking about suicide, she said.

For every 1,100 county residents, she added, only one mental health counselor is available, and the waiting time for help can be as long as six months. Like nurses and teachers, as the pandemic abated, social workers and mental health support employees left their fields partly because of burnout, and fewer individuals are pursuing mental health support careers, Asher noted.

Another challenge is to reduce drug overdose deaths.

“Anderson County saw an 82% increase in substance misuse-related deaths in 2020 compared to 2019, which saw an 11.9% decline,” she said. “We are still nowhere close to pre-pandemic numbers, but our number for 2022 is lower than the 2020 number.”

United Way programs are making a difference

But the United Way programs she leads are making a difference, she stated. The organization is distributing community grants to 30 agencies and 44 programs using contributions from employees of major donors, including UT Battelle/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Consolidated Nuclear Security/Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, ORNL Federal Credit Union, Centrus and United Cleanup Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR).

She said 24 fund distribution panel volunteers decided which agencies and programs should be financially supported by United Way donations because of their expertise and ability to help the United Way achieve its mission “to unite the community and mobilize resources so every child, individual and family can thrive,” as well as its vision of “a community where every person has an equal chance at a bright future.”

“United Way of Anderson County (UWAC) programs provided almost 1 million healthy meals to children in 2022 in Anderson County,” she said, explaining that the programs strive to address the fact that 13.6% of the children enrolled in a government program are considered overweight or obese. United Way also provides information on where local food pantries are and when they are open, as well as when local churches offer free community meals.

Northern Anderson County

In northern Anderson County, Asher said, children who did not know that French fries come from potatoes grown in the ground or what a tomato plant looks like are being introduced by senior adults to planting and harvesting community gardens and to canning fruits and vegetables.

Asher said she is hopeful that Briceville and some other rural areas in northern Anderson County will soon receive federal infrastructure funding to bring the Internet there.

“Without the Internet you cannot apply for a job or benefits easily,” she said.

As president of the United Ways of Tennessee, Asher told the ORICL class about a new financial literacy tool that enables low-income Tennesseans to find out which of the 17 federally funded assistance programs they qualify for. All they must do is text the word “benefits” to 211-211 or get assistance from the United Way in doing so. The programs available through the Tennessee Department of Human Services are designed to help low-income families cover basic expenses like health care, food and housing.

Helping people find housing

Asher said one big success of UWAC in an emergency was to rapidly find housing for the families displaced when the Applewood Apartments were torn down in Oak Ridge. United Way leaders advocating for the displaced families, found that most qualified for assistance and worked with Tennessee Out-Reach Center for Homeless (TORCH), the Oak Ridge Housing Authority and other agencies to find homes for the families and prevent the children from having to change schools.

To help Anderson County residents acquire the training needed to obtain better-paying jobs, Asher said her office will be housing a “mobility mentor” through the East Tennessee collaborative of the Tennessee Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) workforce development and employment program. The collaborative is run by the United Way of Greater Knoxville.

“The mobility mentor in our office will have access to resources up to $1,600 in cash a month for families needing help so they can move out of poverty,” she said. “The grant allows United Way this year to give families in Anderson and Morgan counties workforce development opportunities and base-level training from Roane State and Pellissippi State community colleges. A grant will be available the following year for Campbell and Scott counties.”

Providing feminine hygiene products, school supplies, food

When Asher and others learned that some older girls in Anderson County were regularly skipping school one week a month, United Way funded the product purchases and distribution of 3,000 feminine hygiene bags. It also placed free feminine hygiene products, laundry detergents in small boxes and other needed items in “blessing boxes” around the county.

Asher told the story of how a blessing box solved problems one day for a mother who could afford only ground beef for her children, but not a detergent to wash their clothes. Also, one of her daughters had just started her period.

In her talk on United Way’s youth development mission, Asher said efforts are made by agencies and schools to ensure that children are not hungry or without school supplies so they can learn. On a side note, she said that when the Oak Ridge Animal Shelter run by the city’s Police Department brought dogs to the Boys and Girls Club of Oak Ridge, it was observed that some children prefer to read aloud to dogs than people.

Helping senior adults, too

Concerning the self-sufficiency goal for Anderson County residents, she said that a self-sufficient family or individual has employment, permanent housing, food and clean clothing and lives in a safe environment free of sexual assault and domestic violence. Also, a UWAC goal is to provide everyone, including seniors, with access to help if they are homeless, have disabilities or are suffering from substance misuse or elder abuse.

UWAC is focusing on improving the lives of seniors, especially those needing mental and physical health care.

“Anyone struggling with drug misuse or mental health issues should have access to help and support,” she said. “No veterans should ever have to die in their cars alone from preventable diseases.”

UWAC partners with local agencies, government, schools and houses of faith to identify service gaps and then come up with initiatives to bridge them. The most challenging gaps include transportation, affordable housing and access to childcare especially during off hours, Asher said. She added that she would like to have a warehouse center to make sure that all local food pantries have available the healthy foods their visitors need.

UWAC, along with the Anderson County Family Justice Center and Grow Oak Ridge are located in a building at 301 Broadway Ave. in Jackson Square. For more information about UWAC and its partners, visit the www.uwayac.org website or contact Asher at Naomi@uwayac.org or 865-483-8431.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Lighthouse in the storm: How United Way meets Anderson County's needs