If your first contact with Rhiannon Powers is over the telephone,
you might decide you are speaking with a woman later in her career. Her words
are chosen with a care not so common these days. She has a friendly formality,
a polite poise, a greater eagerness to listen than to speak. When she does
speak, you can hear a glowing smile in her voice, a confidence surely borne of
the maturity of years.
In person, she shows all that to be true, except you’re shaking hands with a
woman just 10 years out of high school.
“I graduated from Chilhowie
High School in 1999. Can
you believe it?” she said, obviously amazed, as are most adults, at the
apparent acceleration of time.
Since March 2, Powers has been the executive director of the United Way of Smyth County
that recently ended a successful, goal-making fund-raising campaign.
She doesn’t claim credit for that success, leaving that for predecessor Susan
Ferraro who took another job in January after eight years with United Way.
For Powers, the United Way
post fits the trajectory of her career that was launched with a bachelor of
social work degree with a minor in sociology at Virginia
Intermont College
in Bristol.
She worked at District Three Governmental Cooperative, then took a full-time
position at Guardianship, a human service organization offering in-home care
and assistance with personal legal and financial management and decision
making. Guardianship is a United Way-funded agency, and the next step was clear
for Powers.
“I always knew I wanted to go into the human services field, and this was a
good fit for me,” she said.
Her favorite part of her new job is the opportunity it brings to help so many
people. “I like helping people all across the spectrum, from children to the
elderly and in between, all the demographics,” she said.
The toughest part has been “learning the operations, the daily operations, the
schedule, what I need to do,” Powers said. “The board has helped me with that.
They have been really great to work with.”
Many in fundraising says that’s the toughest part of their jobs, and with
current economic conditions, it is an even greater challenge. But Powers said United Way has
“good people who have been at it for years, and people do care about their
neighbors. That makes it easier to go out and raise money.”
In spite of, or more correctly because of, the “belt-tightening” brought about
by job losses and the credit crunch, Powers said, “When times are hard, that’s
when people should feel the need to give the most for people who have no
resources whatsoever.”
Powers said her agency is getting “more and more calls for help with paying the
electrical bills. That’s all the more reason for people to give what they can.”
Powers is getting ready for allocations, when board members meet with
representatives of agencies that applied for United Way funding, then decide how to
distribute the funds collected. That work begins May 21.
The next campaign kicks off in August, and in between, Powers is considering a
couple of additional fund-raising events.
Asked what is the most important thing people should know about the new head of
the United Way,
Powers took only a moment to respond. “I am going to do my best to maintain the
integrity of the United Way
and ensure its success in the future.”
