Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Since beginning as the new chief executive officer of United Way of Whitley and Kosciusko Counties on Aug. 18, Barry Andrew has had the task of redesigning, reorganizing and reshaping the not-for-profit that was founded in 1958.
“We’re super excited about the new United Way, the new journey we’re on, the new vision, the new path that we’re on and just simply excited about serving our community in whatever capacity that ends up looking like,” he said in an interview Wednesday at the United Way office, 119 E. Center St., Suite A5, Warsaw, along with Chief Relationship Officer (CRO) Randy Polston.
Andrew, who previously served as the director of Kosciusko County Community Corrections, said United Way was a part of his professional journey as Pat Coy was the executive director when he started at the county. When the county started Drug Court in 2013, Coy was part of the team that helped form its board and leadership. United Way ultimately provided seed money to get Drug Court started. From there, Andrew became involved with United Way through boards, committees and Day of Caring. Polston served as the Warsaw Community Schools representative to United Way.
Andrew’s priorities changed with his family and he had to bow out of his involvement with the organization.
When the CEO position became available, Andrew said, “God put this in my path. Never thought it would be an option in my life to be someone that would be picked to lead an organization, but conversations started to be had.”
He started praying and thinking about it, talking to his wife and sought wisdom. His father-in-law always told him to explore all his options as the worst thing they’d tell him is no.
“Whatever’s next in my path, that God puts in front of my path, I’m going to do my best to follow, so ultimately he brought me here, and working on redesigning, reorganizing, rebranding, redeveloping United Way to an organization that is going to love and serve this community well,” Andrew stated.
Polston began as the CRO a week after Andrew began as CEO.
Born and raised in this community, Polston said throughout his 34 years at Warsaw Community Schools, he was involved in United Way to the point of being the school district’s campaign representative.
“So every year, when that rolled around, I got things kicked off for all of the schools. So United Way has always had a place in my heart. As Barry shared, I go as God guides,” Polston said, which has had him go from WCS to Grace College to Combined Community Services and the Early Learning Center in Columbia City.
When the opportunity to serve as the CRO presented itself, Polston read through the job description and didn’t feel like it was God’s direction for him. He prayed about it, but as much as he loves the United Way, he didn’t feel like it was the next chapter in his life. When Andrew was named as the new CEO, he reached out to Polston and asked to meet him for lunch and a conversation.
After their talk, more prayer and thought - and knowing Andrew was taking over the role as CEO - Polston asked Andrew and Jeri Purdy, from the United Way Board, to meet with him. After further discussion, Polston accepted the offer to join the United Way as the CRO.
“I have not regretted it for one second. We hit the road running. It’s an agency that Barry and I both believe in 100% that will impact our community and the people that live in our community, no matter what project we decide to target, no matter what goal we target. It’s all about our community. Barry termed it ‘Love Well, Serve Well,’ and that’s what we’re doing,” Polston stated.
As the CRO, Polston works side by side with Andrew to “renew relationships, to restore relationships, to create new relationships with people in our community,” he explained. “Once we had that conversation, and me being born and raised here and people know who I am, I thought we could come together and really do the job of creating new relationships and renewing old relationships. And mending any relationships that need to be mended as well.”
Going forward, Andrew said his and Polston’s job right now is restarting United Way.
“United Way had a bigger swath within our community, going back to those Days of Caring when United Way would provide hope and opportunity, impact, through serving the community members, such as painting a house or putting new windows in or putting new flooring in or whatever the case may be,” Andrew said. “And then over time, the focus was changed and narrowed down, and, unfortunately, over time, with that, came a stigma that United Way was really not around anymore.”
A lot of people thought United Way had folded and left the communities of Whitley and Kosciusko counties.
“And so, the current focus and the current mission is the youth and the school population, which is a wonderful arena to be in. We’re certainly going to stay there. But our hope and our goal is to eventually expand that. That’s part of our journey now, figuring out where it’s going to go,” Andrew said.
Now, they’re fixing and repairing relationships while starting new ones, as well as build trust back.
“I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, whatever lane, whatever niche, whatever space United Way continues to develop into - and it could be a small space right now into a bigger space - our motto now is to ‘Love Well and to Serve Well.’ And whatever population that is going to be, whatever space that is going to be, we’re going to try to do that well, and we’re hoping that our actions will show that over time, and that the community is going to be interested in what’s a little bit different about United Way,” Andrew said.
Polston said over the years that he was involved in United Way, it would impact many nonprofits and schools in the area. Over time, changes had to be made and the focus narrowed down to the worthwhile target of impacting children’s lives, specifically in the area of reading.
“I envision a tree with all of these branches and all the branches represented every nonprofit, every school that United Way was able to impact. Over time, many of those branches had to be cut off, and the focus was the trunk of the tree with the children,” Polston explained. “So Barry and I are looking at this, as we move forward with United Way, we want to work at grafting those branches back onto the tree. To what extent, we don’t know yet, but we want the focus to continue to be children, but let’s also talk about the nonprofits, let’s talk about areas that United Way has been able to make such a positive impact over the years.”
It’s all going to take time, but Polston and Andrew have been filling up their calendars to meet with principals, nonprofit directors and others in Whitley and Kosciusko counties to talk about the vision for United Way.
Andrew said they want United Way to move forward and be a collaborater.
“We don’t want to be in competition. We just want to be a good teammate, a good collaborator, a good encourager, whatever that looks like in both of the communities. We’re here to be a teammate with you, and not in competition with you, because there’s a lot of people in both communities doing things really, really well. So if it’s just simply our job to make what they’re doing a little bit better or a little more robust, then we’ll do that. If it’s just standing in the background cheering and clapping for them, we’ll do that, and everything in between,” Andrew said.
To contact Andrew, call 574-269-2592, ext. 104, or 574-265-4820; email barry@uwwk.org; or visit the website at uwwk.org. To contact Polston, call 574-269-2592, ext. 111, or 574-551-9243; or email randy@uwwk.org
