Show exiting United Way CEO we frankly give a ...

The Mesa Republic - May 12, 2010, by Paul Maryniak, Republic Southeast Valley Community Editor

If you want to get an idea of what Mesa United Way President/CEO Carol McCormack is like, think Scarlett O'Hara with a Facebook page and a Blackberry along with a personality that is much shorter on abrasiveness and far longer on compassion.

Eleven years in Mesa couldn't erase her Southern heritage and upbringing, which she deftly use to enlist some of the best and brightest Mesans all walks of life in her lifelong campaign help the city's downtrodden.

Matching her genteel charm is a sharp mind that early on in the last decade recognized how high-tech tools and social media could drive her exhortation to Mesa to "Live United."

And beneath it all is a heart that you could see and hear ached as much for kids who lacked basic necessities like food and clothing, as it did for senior citizens who were so abandoned they had no one to take them to a doctor.

Sadly, Carol is pulling a Rhett Butler of sorts on us.

She still frankly gives a damn, but she's leaving nonetheless, heading for Norfolk, Va., to lead the United Way chapter in an area not far from where she grew up, went to college and where her eight older siblings still live.

Despite those personal connections, she has an even more personal reason for leaving: her husband took a position with the U.S. Navy there a year ago.

Mesa residents should rejoice and cry over the news. Rejoice because of all that she did for this city in her 11 years here, and cry because her departure leaves a big hole in the community at a time when it needs a voice like hers to represent the recession's mounting human toll.

I'd make that same assessment I hadn't worked with Carol, who inspired me 10 years ago when she first came into my Mesa office only a few months after I had joined The Republic.

She spoke with such conviction about the needs of so many of Mesa's less fortunate residents, young and old alike, that I got involved working with other citizens in United Way's community investment process, which empowers residents to determine what needs in their city should be addressed first.

After she convinced me to join the Mesa United Way Board, I spent many a morning with her, then-citizen Scott Smith, then-Vice Mayor Claudia Walters and a few other people infected by Carol's her passion and compassion figuring out new ways to get United Way's message across to a wider audience.

During those meetings, Carol mostly listened to us bat ideas around but you could see the wheels grinding away inside her head. A short time after a meeting, she'd storm back with a plan that had shaped our ideas into yet another way to drive the Live United message home to Mesa.

She didn't just find ways to beg for money; she got right into the trenches herself. Most recently, she helped create Helen's Hope Chest, a place where foster children could find clothing after they ended up on the state Legislature's widening hit list of victims.

The Legislature had cut foster parents' clothing stipend to a level beyond heartless, so Carol stepped in, enlisted a series of partners that went all the way to U.S. Sen. John McCain's office, and produced a place where foster kids could pick out used clothes and get them at no cost.

So now that she's leaving, I figure there's only one way for Mesans to thank Carol and wish her well.

Given that she's helped so many of our less fortunate neighbors in this city, the best goodbye gift we could give is a donation of a buck for every year she's been here to Mesa United Way. You can send that $11 to Mesa United Way, 137 E. University Drive, Mesa, AZ 85201, or go to mesaunitedway.org.

Keep in mind the end of "Gone With the Wind," when Scarlett defiantly cried, "Tomorrow is another day."

Because even without Carol leading the charge, Mesa United Way will still need your help to brighten the tomorrows of untold thousands of people who need our help today.