Celebrating 75 years: Lubbock Area United Way marks milestone, honors volunteers

By Shambhavi Rimal, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Lubbock Area United Way hosted its 75th Anniversary Celebration as part of its Annual Meeting and Volunteer Recognition Thursday at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center.

United Way recognized David Alderson with the Rita Harmon Volunteer Service Award. The award has been presented each year since 1993 to honor deserving individuals for a lifetime of community service.  

Alderson has been a dedicated community volunteer, supporting United Way, Texas Tech University, the efforts to revitalize downtown, and other organizations. Alderson served as the United Way Campaign Chair in 2012.  

Alderson said it was a very humbling day for him and thanked his friends, family and associates for the recognition.  

“Each of you are here today because you're volunteering and have a wonderful gift; and as The Beatles said, the amount of love you take is equal to the amount of love you make,” Alderson said.

Mark Griffin, 2021 Campaign Chair, announced that $6,000,183 has been contributed to help support United Way’s Community Partners.  

These contributions will impact more than 115,000 lives across the Lubbock area in the coming year. Since 1946, more than $205 million has been given by generations of West Texans supporting local nonprofit agencies, families and individuals across the South Plains, Griffin said 

“Obviously, this is a group effort -  there's the campaign cabinet, loan executives, speaker's bureau, campaign coordinators, and countless others who decided to make a conscious decision to do good and decide that they want to be part of this campaign,” Griffin said.  

The 75th Anniversary Chair, Heather Smith with United Supermarkets, was recognized for her role in leading the past year’s celebration. Smith committed three years to the project. Her extensive experience in project management helped set the right scope, pull together the volunteer team, and pivot plans during the pandemic. She also authored the commemorative publication, “Building a Better Lubbock”. 

“It was truly my honor to chair the 75th anniversary, I love the United Way I love what they stand for,” Smith said.