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Giving for the fun of it Andy Uram to receive 2016 ‘Philanthropist of the Year Award’ from WCCF

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Andy Uram will receive the Philanthropist of the Year Award Thursday from the Washington County Community Foundation.

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Andy Uram, Washington County Community Foundation’s 2016 Philanthropist of the Year, believes successful fundraising requires a personal touch with potential donors.

As a businessman, Andy Uram had a busy life, as a leading insurance executive, a banker and in commercial real estate ventures.

“Somebody said that to have a full life, you should have three careers, and I did that,” said Uram, 95, in a recent interview.

But along the way, Uram, of East Washington, also created a fourth career that was even more fulfilling. It’s one that he recalls fondly as a “fun” pursuit – devoting a major portion of his life to giving.

In the process, he touched countless lives in Washington County, as well as on the other side of the globe, with most of the recipients unaware of the benefactor.

For that work, Uram will be honored as the 2016 “Philanthropist of the Year” by the Washington County Community Foundation at a banquet Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn in Southpointe.

When Uram graduated from Butler High School in 1937, he landed his first job as a laborer at Armco Steel. “I made 50 cents an hour; I took home $12,” he said.

His father had died just a few years before, when he was 10.

As he was entering the work world, Uram said, his mother said something that would guide him in life.

“It was the Depression, and my mother was a widow, and nobody had anything. She said, ‘It’s better to give than to receive.'”

In 1943, Uram joined the Navy, serving as an aviation cadet in World War II. In 1945, he joined Metropolitan Life as an agent, and after a couple of years was promoted to the company’s field training division in New York City, where he lived for five years.

Metropolitan sent Uram to Washington in 1955 as a district manager in charge of 35 agents and 10 clerks. At the time, he was the youngest manager for the insurance giant.

A year later, he became involved with fundraising for the Washington County Community Chest, predecessor to the United Way of Washington County.

It was then that Uram used his business acumen to create successful fundraising.

The approach involved meeting with potential donors face to face, which Uram believes was crucial to getting a commitment.

“We had teams, we went from house to house, and the people who were selected were the ones who knew the people they were going to collect from. We had the corporations, had their cooperation to have sessions with eight or 10 employees at a time, and we’d convince them to do payroll deductions, 50 cents a pay, $1 a pay, and of course, the corporations were backing us, as were the local banks.”

But Uram acknowledged that fundraising in the 1950s was different.

“Before it was United Way, it was Washington County Community Chest for two years,” he said.

“We were just starting to try to do charitable work, so we had picnics, and at one point we had a pageant. A corporation provided the young ladies, and one of them was crowned ‘Miss Community Chest,'” he said, noting that the unintended anatomical reference helped the charity make the transition to United Way.

Uram’s fundraising efforts paid off. In the mid-1960s, he became the first leader of a United Way campaign in Washington County to raise $1 million. By the end of the 1960s, he also was chairman of the Catawba District of the Boy Scouts of America, president and Paul Harris Fellow of the Washington Rotary Club and district governor of Rotary. He also has been a director of the Alcohol & Drug Information Center, Multiple Sclerosis Society, as well as the Greater Washington Area Chamber of Commerce.

His friend and fellow Rotarian Charles Keller said Uram “richly deserves” the honor of receiving WCCF’s highest award.

“He’s been a giver all of his life,” Keller said last week. “He’s one of the happiest memories I have in Rotary. He’s such a great guy.

“Most business and professional people are primarily interested in the bottom line, but if it’s only that, you’re missing half the fun in life,” said Keller, who said Uram clearly enjoyed the part of his professional life he devoted to giving.

Uram said he never had any criteria when he considered making a donation to a group or cause. “Somebody asked me if I would (give) to such and such, and I said, ‘yes.'”

Among his favorites are charities that were also supported by his late wife, Julie Uram: Immaculate Conception Church and the Diocese of Pittsburgh, as well as Washington Hospital.

But the reach of his giving went well beyond the area. Through Rotary International, the Washington Rotary Club and Pittsburgh-based Brother’s Brother Foundation, Uram led a drive to raise enough money over a two-year period to send 1 million books to Ghana, East Africa. The books, which ranged from primary reading to grade school, high school and college texts, were enough to start a large library.

The Ghanaian ambassador to the United States came to meet with those who had worked on the book campaign. “He said, ‘I can’t believe people we don’t know did so much for people they never saw,'” Uram recalled.

The ambassador’s visit was one of the few times that Uram met someone representing people he was instrumental in helping, adding that being “seldom seen” as a giver is preferable to him.

“You don’t have to know the people as long as you know you are helping,” he said. “There is a great satisfaction knowing you are helping legitimate receivers.”

So what would he tell someone who is considering giving or becoming involved in fundraising?

“You have to have heart, and I’m not sure that the young people have heart. I think it’s much more difficult to get money from people today than it was back when I was doing it,” he said.

One challenge to modern fundraising exists, Uram believes, because much of the personal contact he enjoyed with potential donors has mostly disappeared.

“It took all of the fun out of it,” he said. “If you’re doing something and you enjoy it, it’s rewarding as compared to doing something because you have to.”

After working 25 years in the insurance industry, Uram joined Mellon Bank in 1969 as a vice president in charge of its Washington branch. When he retired from banking at 65, he became involved in commercial real estate in the Washington area.

While his three careers required him to be highly visible to the public, Uram said he always preferred anonymity for the fourth career of giving that he enjoyed so much.

“Some people give because they want to get something back in return, but that’s not my philosophy.”

The Washington County Community Foundation Philanthropy Banquet will be held at 6 p.m.Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn, Southpointe. Proceeds from the banquet will support the charitable activities of WCCF, including the Andrew G. and Juliana J. Uram Fund. To make a reservation, contact the Washington County Community Foundation at 724-222-6330 or info@wccf.net.

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