Initiative emphasizes ‘human’ element in human services

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 1998 | 10:31 a.m.

While the city struggles to keep up the development of infrastructure, the United Way recognizes the human needs associated with the Las Vegas Valley's growth.

"The Human Side of Growth," a consciousness raising campaign that focuses on human issues such as social services, was unveiled Monday at the Clark County Government Center.

The campaign, which emphasizes that the human aspect is often overlooked among the bricks and bulldozers, intends to inform the community of areas lacking in social services and challenge community leaders to take action.

"This is a call to action to the entire Las Vegas community," Garth Winkler, president of the United Way of Southern Nevada, said. "We need to bring the community up to speed on the ever-increasing gap between health and human service needs in our valley and our ability to effectively respond to those needs. "

Winkler added that Las Vegas has fallen behind as a community when it comes to delivering on the promise of Las Vegas.

"Southern Nevada consistently compares unfavorably with other cities in almost every measure of health and services," Winkler said.

The programs that Southern Nevada does have, however, are innovative, creative and compassionate, he said. The purpose of this new initiative, he said, is to build on that foundation.

Michael Maffie, president and chief executive officer of Southwest Gas and chairman of the Southern Nevada United Way, said the main goal is to challenge the community to develop social programs in keeping with the expanding population.

"There's more to creating a community than just building houses, building hotels, building casinos and fixing Spring Mountain Road," Maffie said, eliciting laughter from the audience, which consisted mostly of service providers and representatives of community organizations.

The United Way of Southern Nevada, an independent, nonprofit corporation, supports more than 100 health and human service programs in Southern Nevada.