THE Cambridge Connection - Episode 31

There’s a lot of information out there. We are hit every day with millions of impressions. People sometimes just don’t know where to turn, where to go, what to look for. And I think that the Cambridge Connection is really helping people navigate what’s in their local community, because there are so many great programs and nonprofits and for-profits and just general organizations that are out there to help. And I think here in Western Mass, and I’m not from here originally, but I love it out here and I think per capita, there’s probably more great organizations than maybe other parts of the state.

It seems like as we talk about community, more and more of those opportunities open up to highlight things that are available. And in a lot of instances, there’s a local connection and a national connection, which means that people that listen to the show in other places will have those same resources and same outlets to turn to. Yeah. And I think diversity and the diversity that you bring to the show with your guests every week is really showcasing this local community. We’re not all nonprofit.

Last week you had Chris Dodion, who’s running for governor. We’ve been fortunate. Our other producer, Leah, her cousin, Ben Noble, that was an amazing two-part series talking about cryptocurrency. So it’s sort of interesting when you think about what you were just saying. The show sort of has generated its own lead generation list.

And every week we seem to be finding more guests without having to go look for more guests, which has been just incredible. And balancing the show. We had Jennifer Connelly from Junior Achievement at Western Mass for our youth. We had Jen Aldworth from Boys and Girls Club, again, our youth. We have to invest in our youth.

And then just completely on the flip, we had Steve Weissman from Scamicide to be able to bring to light things that people should stay away from, because scams can affect people financially in every way, shape, or form, and really ruin people’s lives for a long time. Oh, absolutely. I signed up for Scamicide the minute I learned about it. You get the email every day. You get the email every day.

Sponsor break and show transition

So I’m really excited to talk to your guests this week. Yeah. We have a special guest, Paul Mina from the United Way of Tri-County. He’s the president and CEO. And I think this is a great time to take a break, and we’ll have him on on the other side.

Sounds like a plan. Right. This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back. Spring is here, and it’s a great time to clean up your debts with a debt management plan from Cambridge Credit Counseling.

Reduce your credit card interest rates and lower your monthly payments. Call Cambridge Credit Counseling today. 1-800-CAMBRIDGE. Welcome back, everyone. This is The Cambridge Connection.

Introducing guest Paul Mina

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my special sit-in co-pilot, Lisa Riley. Hi, Lisa. Hey, Gordon. All right. This is a great week.

This show, talking about community, it is an honor to welcome our special guest, Paul Mina, who’s the president and CEO of United Way of Pioneer Valley. Hey, Paul. Hey, Gordon. How are you? I’m great.

How are you? I’m fine. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on.

This show is all about empowering people with financial wellness and financial wisdom and empowerment. So before we get into the United Way of Pioneer Valley, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your background? Well, I’ve been working for United Way in multiple cities in Massachusetts for the last 35 years. I started off with Boys and Girls Clubs of America. I ran the Boys and Girls Club in Worcester, Massachusetts for 14 years, the Lincoln Square Clubhouse, and have been in human services all my career.

I love the work. I love working with people. I love getting up in the morning and knowing that the work that we do every day actually has a positive impact improving the quality of life for people. And that sustains me personally. So I’m very blessed to have a job that I love.

Overview of the Thrive coaching program

With the show and with the times that we’re in, obviously one of the connections that we have talking about people being in a good place financially is the stress that debt brings on and that even just managing the budget of income and expenses brings on to families and individuals. I know United Way has the Thrive Program. Can you give an overview of what Thrive is? Absolutely. Thanks for that opportunity.

Thrive, Gordon, is a free and confidential financial coaching program where highly trained coaches that we have on our team meet monthly with their clients to help them reach their financial goals. Now, you know, some people look at financial goals and they say how their investment portfolio might be and how much money they can save. But for the clients that we’re dealing with, they have to start with very basic things because many, many of the people that we deal with, many of these folks that come to the Thrive Program, they’re looking at not knowing how to budget their income. A lot of them have never been paid by check before. It’s a different culture that they come from, a cash-based culture in their native countries.

So unfortunately, there’s a lot of skills that they need to come up to speed on. You know, when someone gets their paycheck and they have to go to a check-cashing store to cash and they pay 19% to cash their check because they don’t have a checking account, that doesn’t help these people and their families at all. It certainly doesn’t help them accumulate wealth or manage their resources. So we start with basic things like setting up a checking account, making sure that they understand about their credit rating, all the things that you would think are important. Fairly rudimentary, we go through all those things, and it’s absolutely incredible how fast people’s situation turns around.

Yeah, I got to tell you, in my younger career of counseling people, the budget was the first place we would start, and it truly is a short percentage where a consumer starting to go down the path of managing their finances had an actual budget in place. So I would probably say 97, 98% of people that would come in for that discussion did not have a budget, and I feel like we still have that conversation today because for people it’s almost painful and arduous to work through that because it’s stressful, right? You’re trying to figure out, you’re bringing in X and you’re spending X, so what’s left over and how do we live life at this point? Oh, you know, you’re so right, and you know, Gordon, the problem is is that sometimes we can’t see the long haul, you know, we’re an instantaneous society, you know, the internet makes everything instantly available, everybody thinks that we can turn things around quickly. Well, financial responsibility is a slow and steady process, and you have to do it week after week, paycheck after paycheck, day after day.

And you know, we’ve got some tremendous stories, Gordon, where people have gone from first job, first checking account, first savings account, and three years later they’ve been able to buy a house. So that’s the tremendous success stories that people can get if they put their nose to the grindstone and they’re willing to accept help. The fact that you’re coaching to make people feel like they’re in the process and not embarrassed and not ashamed that they have to work through that, that coaching piece is just amazing and it has to happen in order for people to be engaged and stay engaged. Yep, you’re right. And you know, we deal with people from the perspective of dignity and respect, Gordon.

You know, everybody coming in that door is a human being. Everybody needs help. It might be a little bit more for some, a little bit less for others. But the fact of the matter is, if you can help somebody today, you’re doing a good job. And you know, our financial coaches will work with you to identify your financial goals.

Depending on whatever they are, they’ll work together. Depending upon your own track of your lifestyle, your household budget has to be done. Credit reports, huge, huge, huge thing. People have no idea how much a good credit rating can do to reduce your expenses on credit card interest and other things. So it’s very important that they stick with these coaches and they build a rapport, a relationship, and they become part of the family.

Paul, what’s the criteria for enrollment? You just have to be in need. There is no fee. The program is free. It’s a program of United Way.

Many of the banks and credit unions in the community fund the program for us. They make donations that are earmarked for Thrive because it’s central to their work. And they see that we’re helping to improve their future clients’ ability to manage their money. And that can only help people. Well, with inflation where it’s at, rents are up 233% or even higher than income.

And all of this leads to the mental epidemic that people have been in as a result of the pandemic, as a result of just dealing with all of the stresses that are going on with life. So for the listeners, how can they get involved in this program? Where do they go to find out more information? They call our Thrive hotline at 413-333-8365. Once again, that’s 413-333-8365.

And one of our coaches will take their intake information and we’ll get them enrolled immediately. This is done in a very, very low-key way. A lot of times people don’t even know the materials that we ask them to bring, you know. It’s a learning curve for everybody. So don’t be afraid.

Be trusting and understand that we’re here to help and that no one’s going to be judgmental no matter how bad your finances are. Over time, they can all be overcome. Well, I guess, you know, the fact that United Way of Pioneer Valley just reached 100th anniversary, it sounds like the organization has a lot of experience and time spent helping people. So we’re going to take a quick break. Can you stay with us so we can talk about that 100th anniversary and some of the things that are going on with it?

Break with United Way event promotion

It’d be my pleasure, Gordon. Awesome. All right. This is The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back.

For many years, United Way of Pioneer Valley has served the community when it’s needed it the most. Their work not only supports other non-profit agencies who are making a difference, but also directly impacts our neighbors in need. With programs ranging from financial literacy to food insecurity, they strive to make a better community for families here in Western Massachusetts. Join United Way of Pioneer Valley on June 2nd for their celebratory luncheon featuring former New York City First Lady and Longmeadow native, Shirlane McRae. org for more details.

History of United Way of Pioneer Valley

Welcome back, everyone. This is The Cambridge Connection. I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with producer Lisa Riley and Paul Mina, president and CEO from United Way of Pioneer Valley. Listener, be advised, on this conversation with Paul Mina from United Way of Pioneer Valley, there will be some topics that are very sensitive. So please be aware that some of the conversation we’ll have will be sensitive material.

Paul, again, thank you so much for joining us. So the 100th anniversary of United Way of Pioneer Valley is upon us. So can you give a little background on when the United Way of Pioneer Valley was founded? Sure. We’re 100 years old this year.

January 10th, 1921 was the first day that the organization was functional. It was not a United Way then. It was a community chest. Many of the United Ways across the country, Gordon, were founded as community chests. And then later, we changed during World War II to the partnership with USO and with the Red Cross.

And we were known as the Red Feather Organization with the Red Cross Appeal for 25 or 30 years, after which we became the United Fund, which changed in the 60s. And then at the end of the 60s, early 70s, we became the United Way. From the perspective of service to helping people, you know, it’s kind of interesting. When you look at the scrapbooks back in 1921, you see that we were partnering with the hospital, with the Boys and Girls Clubs, with the USO and the Red Cross. There are many of the same organizations that we continue to work with.

Much has changed, but a tremendous amount has stayed the same. We still have a huge focus on basic human needs, food, clothing, shelter, and safe after-school programming for children that’s affordable for their parents. We’ve kind of kept our niche because it’s the right niche for us. We are the community safety net. It’s our job to make sure that those most in need get the services that they need, not for a handout, Gordon, but for a hand up or a helping hand.

Most people don’t want to be dependent, and they’d much rather be independent and self-sufficient. So that’s what we work toward. What has not changed in a hundred years is the mission of simply helping people that need help. That is correct. And it’s because it’s the right thing to do.

You know, you can measure the quality of a community based on how the lowliest of its citizens are treated. The Pioneer Valley has been a very loyal, a very tight-knit region for a hundred years or longer. This is a very generous place, very, very blessed to have the companies and individuals who support us in this region, because without their money and without their volunteerism, we couldn’t do anything. So along those lines, Paul, your organization and your leadership in 2021, you really had some huge accomplishments that I was reading about. And, you know, the first one you just mentioned about food insecurity in Western Mass, and there are so many food pantries that are out here, and the people of Western Mass really do care that their neighbors don’t go hungry.

Food insecurity and the 211 hotline

You had a lot of food distribution in 2021. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure. Well, we run food security programs throughout the Commonwealth in the Metro West area and now here in Pioneer Valley. We partner with the Western Mass Food Bank.

They’re wonderful partners of ours, and we brought in prepared meals that were frozen to needy families, and they got distributed. We also worked with the Boys and Girls Club in Springfield. We had breakfast for the first responders to thank them for their tremendous help during COVID-19. We really have also worked with the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club. We opened up the Chickapee Food Pantry during COVID.

We have our own United Way Food Pantry that’s open Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ve done an awful lot in food security in a very short time, during a very difficult time in our recent history. How do people find what they need through the United Way? Because you are a large organization, and are a lot of the families and individuals that you help, are they referrals? Do people immediately think United Way and go on your website?

Are your partners, is it your partnerships that are referring people? Where do the people that you serve come from? All of the above and many more destinations originate our client base. What happens typically is that word of mouth is the number one way that people hear. We don’t have an advertising budget to advertise to provide services.

We just don’t have that kind of money. So what we do is we depend on word of mouth. Our agencies and our network of agencies spreads the word to their client base. Word of mouth is huge. The internet and social media is becoming more of a draw as far as getting the information out for the younger clients especially.

But for our senior citizens, middle-aged people, they still don’t use that. They use another service that we provide which is Mass 2-1-1. We own and operate, United Way owns and operates the 2-1-1 number in Massachusetts and throughout most of the United States. It’s a three-digit number like 4-1-1 and 9-1-1. And you can call it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can ask about any service or question, human service related or community related.

And we answer the phone in 146 languages and people can call free of charge and they can say, where is the closest food pantry? Where can I get help? I get burned out, my house burned, I’ve been evicted, where can I go for shelter? I don’t have any heat, my oil is empty, I need to have heat, can’t pay my fuel bill. And our 2-1-1 hotline connects them with the services that they need and that’s also free of charge.

And as part of 2-1-1, we have a secondary line which is called Call to Talk, C-A-L-L, the number two, and then the word talk. And that’s our mental health suicide prevention line. You know, Gordon hit on it earlier in the conversation about the mental stress that people have been under during COVID and during these trying times that we live in. And the number of people, especially young people, who are depressed, emotionally unstable, feel like they’re alone, that are calling our hotline is ridiculous. I don’t want to be dramatic, but...

Well, I saw that... No, that’s dramatic. I saw for the 25 communities that you serve that there were 31,690 calls to Mass 2-1-1 alone. That’s right. And the top three requests to talk about were COVID, housing, and mental health.

That’s right. And the problem is, is that, you know, thank God, most of the people that call may be despondent, but they’re not actionable suicidal. So we can usually talk to them, our Call to Talk people are highly trained and they know how to assess the call. If somebody is exhibiting behavior that might lend us to believe that they were hurt themselves or somebody else, we have a whole protocol in place to work with the local authorities so that we can gently get help to that person immediately because of the technology we have. It’s a good thing to be able to help.

Centennial anniversary celebration events

You’re not always successful, but the majority of the time, thank goodness we are. Well, the more that we can do to spread the word of all of the things that United Way of Pioneer Valley does, there’s going to be some great attention with this 100th anniversary celebration. So are there any special events planned to celebrate the milestone and bring awareness that these services exist? Absolutely. There are two events.

The biggest one is our Centennial Luncheon, which will be held at the Sheridan Monarch Place Hotel on June 2nd. It’s a free luncheon. The community is invited. org. 8 billion.

So it’s an awful lot of money that the people of the Pioneer Valley have given as an investment to United Way. We’re very proud of what we’ve done with their trust. Well, congratulations to you, your career of being selfless and helping people, and for the 100th anniversary of the United Way of Pioneer Valley. Paul, thank you so much for joining the show. We’d love to have you back in the near future.

Reflecting on the interview and closing

Thanks for the opportunity. I hope you guys have a great day. And Lisa, having Paul Miner and even talking about the mission of the United Way, again, financial wisdom, financial wellness, financial empowerment. That’s what the show is all about. Yes, it is.

And it’s amazing, organizations like United Way, I mean, 100 years they’ve been helping people and the amount of progressiveness that they continue to create, I mean, just even Creating that mass 2-1-1 and taking almost 32,000 phone calls in the last year to answer consumers’ questions. Sometimes people don’t want to talk to their family or close circle of people when they’re having problems. They don’t want to be judged. They don’t want to be criticized. Maybe people aren’t in the family able to hear some things that they want to say.

So a hotline like that is just so needed in these times. What really amazes me is that the progressive nature of some of these organizations. They could have been stuck back in the 50s and 60s and 70s, but they continue to innovate. They continue to grow their base to fit what the consumer need is within that moment. Like Paul said, he said, we grew during the pandemic.

We didn’t cut back. We added more. And I think that really shows the value of organizations. You don’t hear a lot about United Way. They’re sort of an under-the-radar organization.

That’s bizarre in itself, right? Yeah, it is. You just don’t, you don’t hear a lot about them. I mean, we all hear about the Red Cross because the Red Cross is always with all the, they’re out in front of people. There’s usually a bombastic catastrophe attached to when they are called in to do something.

So there’s always that media, which obviously is not great, but that’s what it is. They’re called in in times where they’re really needed for helping people that are either passed on or needing medical assistance. Right. And I think that the United Way should get a little bit more attention because I think they’re doing some amazing work, both here in Western Mass and probably across the country. I’m sure that this is not a solo situation.

I pulled up some information and I just wanted to review it real quick. In 2020, the USDA reported more than 38 million people, which included 12 million children as food insecure. Those numbers are, in my mind, astronomical when you think about the amount of people that just live in this country. And of course, they say that the majority of those people are in rural areas. And Western Mass has a lot of rural areas, which probably explains why there are so many food banks and pantries out here.

There’s some great organizations. I mean, the Food Bank of Western Mass just does a phenomenal job in supporting all these food pantries around the area. But that number just, I feel like we’re in 2022. Why is that number growing? It should be getting smaller.

None of these organizations get the notoriety that they deserve because they really are about just helping people. And statistics that you just brought up is why on this show, we don’t go doom and gloom, but we are raising awareness. And if that number is increasing and there’s still uncertainty about the pandemic’s residual effects and what potentially may lie in the future, this is a great time to batten down the hatches on your finances. If you don’t have a budget in place, now’s the time to get one in place. You’ve got to really be controlling and trying to save to be able to prepare just in case these trends equal something really bad.

And if they don’t, well, then you’ll still be in better shape. So did you bring us a quote to close out the show? You know I did, Lisa. So good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others by Plato. I’d like to give a huge thank you to you, Lisa, for joining me on the show today to take Tina Murray’s spot.

And again, we hope she’s feeling well. Huge thanks to Leah for producing the show. As you can see, we continue to bring great experts, great human beings, great philanthropists on the show. m. com.

You can find our podcasts on SoundCloud or listen to our podcast anywhere where you listen to your normal shows. Once again, we’d like you to be part of the conversation. org or feel free to call 1-800-CAMBRIDGE.