Stillwater, OKLA. - Shelley Ricker, Executive Director of the Stillwater Area United Way since 1977, will spend her last day on the job tomorrow. And the current United Way Board is inviting all of Stillwater to an appreciation reception at the Stillwater Community Center from 1-3.
“It would be hard to imagine this city without Shelley Ricker's leadership in social services over the past three decades,” says current United Way Chair, ONG Manager, Paul Vela. When she arrived, the annual campaign raised $113,000 while recent campaign totals have surpassed $800,000. There were 13 United Way agencies in 1977 and today there are 25.
Vela, who has worked with United Way in several communities says Ricker is “without question the most loyal director he’s seen.” He calls her “the face of United Way in Stillwater” and says her knowledge of the community and its people have been invaluable to United Way’s volunteer leaders.
Ron Beer, retired OSU Administrator and former United Way President, says Ricker is, “without question, one of the most dedicated leaders committed to a cause” he’s encountered. “She always worked overtime to make sure United Way Board Members and volunteers had the support necessary to make United Way successful in Stillwater.
Ricker says the opportunity to work with so many people from mayors to mailmen and from bank presidents to meter readers kept the job interesting for 30 years. “I learned something new from each new president and it was like getting a new boss every year,” says Ricker. “My kids were always impressed when the guys in the ONG trucks would honk and wave at me, but I knew them from workplace campaigns over the years.”
Ricker, who’s a Certified Fundraising Executive, learned a lot about the ebb and flow of fundraising locally. “I used to worry about our campaigns when the economy was rough and raises were low, but old-timers told me it’s easier to raise funds in hard times because Stillwater has a core of people who will reach deeper to help when help is needed,” she says.
Nevertheless, presidential election years have occasionally been down years for the local campaign and the most difficult year in Stillwater came when three or four local churches had capital campaigns totaling six million dollars underway at once.
Stillwater is fortunate far beyond finances according to Ricker. She says the bank of knowledge at OSU offers a huge benefit to the local community because so many individuals with specialized expertise are willing to volunteer. A particular example she recalls involved The Life Center’s Adult Day Service. Stillwater was one of the first non-metropolitan areas to offer such service after two faculty members from the College of Human Environmental Sciences returned from a national conference with specific details and helped develop the concept locally.
She says the advent of computers to track donations and enable payroll deductions at large institutions like OSU were major turning points in Stillwater’s campaign growth. The development of the Day of Caring to launch the campaign each fall is another high point in Ricker’s tenure.
Ricker is a Stillwater native who graduated from C.E. Donart High School and OSU and remained active in the First Methodist Church and Delta, Delta, Delta Sorority. She’s a past president of the State Association of United Way Directors and helped found the Payne County Help Group, an association of social service agencies, the Stillwater Community Health Center and 2-1-1 Services for North Central Oklahoma.
She notes Stillwater has always been the sort of community where, when there’s a need, people will knock themselves out to make sure it’s met. She hopes that the many new businesses and residents who are arriving as part of the current boom will continue to get involved and realize that the social safety net provided by United Way and other social services is a critical part of economic development.
Ricker plans to continue working in the non-profit world through a local museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi. She says, quoting Tulsa author Jim Stovall, “When you find your passion and pursue it with ultimate productivity, economic conditions will never matter and you will live a life of success, prosperity and satisfaction.” She intends to pursue her passion for blues music and work to enhance the quality of life in the Mississippi Delta.