Meet Diamond Donor Sharon Moreland

Sharon Moreland (left) receives her Diamond Donor certificate from United Way of Metropolitan Chicago employee Rhonda Washington (right)

Habilitative Services, Inc is a multi-faceted human service agency on the West Side of Chicago, developing and providing resources to promote maximum independence, personal responsibility and dignity for mentally, physically, socially and emotionally disabled persons.

Sharon Moreland is the Executive Assistant to the CEO, and served as the Campaign Leader for the 2009 campaign. When I met with Ms Moreland she told me that she had been giving to United Way since her “IBM days”. Further conversation revealed that she had given during her employment at Pitney Bowes as well as continuing to give at Habilitive Services, Inc.

Under her leadership, the Habilitative Services, Inc. campaign increased from about $200 in 2008 to just over $1500 in 2009! In February I returned to visit with the staff to thank them for their outstanding campaign and to present Ms. Moreland with her Diamond Donor certificate and pin commemorating 25 years of giving to United Way. The employees were excited, and commented that “no one has ever come just to say thank you to us”, one employee said that he “felt bad that he didn’t give more”.

I want to say thank you again to Ms. Moreland and all of the staff at Habilitative Services, Inc. for making a difference in the community every day in the work you do and for extending that work to the community at large through the United Way Campaign.

Rhonda Washington

Rhonda has worked for United Way for the past six years and is responsible for several Top 25 corporate campaigns. She also acts as a local community activist whose work includes serving as president of a local Chicago school council and an executive board member of the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Woman's network, an organization that advocates for victims of domestic violence.