New Centre County United Way director looks to ‘pull together our entire community’
Leanne Lenz took over the reins this month as executive director at the Centre County United Way, but she’s no stranger to local nonprofits.
The former Centre Helps executive director got her start with that organization as a college student and said she’s seen first-hand the kind of impact the United Way has on nonprofits and the community. Last year’s Centre County United Way annual campaign raised $1.57 million to benefit the organization’s 28 partner agencies.
Lenz takes over for former executive director Wendy Vinhage, who left the position because her family was moving out of state.
She was appointed by the United Way Board of Directors in late May after a lengthy search.
“The board could not be happier with its appointment of Leanne Lenz to serve as the next executive director of Centre County United Way. Her experience as the head of one of our partner agencies gives her a unique perspective to help make our campaign successful year after year,” David Pribulka, chairman of the Centre County United Way Board of Directors, said in a news release.
The Centre Daily Times recently interviewed Lenz to learn more about her role, goals and challenges ahead. Below are her responses, which have been edited for clarity and length.
Centre Daily Times: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your work up to this point.
Leanne Lenz: My most recent position was as executive director for Centre Helps, which is one of the United Way partner agencies. I started volunteering at Centre Helps — which was then called Community Help Center — all the way back in 2002 when I was a college student. I volunteered there for a few years and then I worked a full-time position there for about five years. I worked for Penn State in health promotion and wellness, and then I worked also at a nonprofit in Spring Mills, called Pennsylvania Certified Organic.
CDT: What does your role with the United Way look like?
LL: As the director here, my goal is to really pull together our entire community. I think the United Way does a good job in doing that — that’s part of what our role is — but for me personally, I want to strengthen that. We have a lot of generous donors and passionate people who want to volunteer and help and give back. We also have a lot of people in the community that need help, and sometimes it’s kind of under the surface, to the point where a lot of us just going about our busy lives don’t notice that there are actually people struggling, there are people in our Happy Valley community who are homeless or are struggling to provide for food.
So really bringing together those who need support and all the people who can provide it and making our community, and Centre County, stronger. It takes the whole community to support each other. I’m really excited about doing that, as well as identifying what additional needs might be in the community that haven’t really been recognized yet.
CDT: Do you have any initial ideas about what those needs might be?
LL: I think that some things have changed related to the pandemic and that things are going to continue to change. It’s been unknown territory. One of the parts of our mission at the United Way is to help with education and early childhood education. And certainly there’s been disruption in that for everybody in the world, but particularly in our own community. I want to make sure that we are addressing any needs that we can, related to that. A lot of people lost their jobs. A lot of people in the service industry lost their jobs and may even be struggling to find work again, so there’s a lot of issues related to economic stability. I think those are kind of some broad categories that we need to look into a little further to see specifically. And mental health as well in terms of the pandemic and what has happened.
I can’t say I know exactly what those needs are yet but certainly there’s going to be some new emerging needs because of all of this that we’ve all been through. I’d like the United Way to be taking initiative and identifying what those needs are and how we can beat them.
CDT: What is one thing that you are most excited about doing in your new role?
LL: I’m really excited to connect more with our overall community. I’m excited to get out there and get to know the community more in terms of all of our partner agencies that are giving, all the other local nonprofits who are supporting the organization or the folks who need the help, as well as our donors.
CDT: What do you think will be a challenge for the United Way as the year continues?
LL: A lot of people are struggling financially. So, in terms of donorship it certainly makes sense that it would be a little bit more of a challenge to raise the funds that we typically raise or that we need to raise to meet the needs of the community. While we have increasing community need, we also have potentially fewer folks who are able to give. That just makes it all more important that we all pitch in as a community.
CDT: What visions do you have for yourself for the next couple years?
LL: One of my bigger visions is to potentially broaden our reach in terms of the United Way. We have really amazing partner agencies and programs. That’s really important and we want to continue those really strong relationships we have. But I’d also like to explore ways that we can meet the needs of the community by potentially creating new programming or identifying new programs in the community that could use our support and we want to partner with. I think there’s a lot of creative ideas out there; there’s different groups, organizations and leaders who really have some great ideas.
CDT: Are there any misconceptions about the United Way that you’d like to clear up?
LL: As someone who worked for 11 years at a nonprofit organization who was a partner agency, Centre Helps, I have seen really close up how important it is to partner with the United Way. Some organizations and some programs really don’t draw a lot of attention from the community, depending on what they’re doing. Because sometimes it’s an unseen need that only those who are in the weeds and providing the services recognize — that there are people who are struggling to pay their rent, people who are really struggling with homelessness. It is our role to identify what those needs are and then fund those programs.
There are programs that are so critical to our community that would otherwise, really not be able to function without the United Way. So when people give to the United Way, they’re not just helping with one thing. They’re helping strengthen the community in every aspect. And I think that some misconceptions are that, ‘Why don’t I just give directly to the organization?’ I would encourage people to give in any way that they can to support others and if they’re passionate about one thing that makes sense. But at the same time, you can really help more people and spread that impact further if you contribute to the United Way, who then identifies those needs.
