2025 Spirit of North Carolina Award Winners

On May 13, 2026, United Way of North Carolina recognized 19 Spirit of North Carolina Award winners for the 2025 year, representing 12 local United Ways. The United Way of Caldwell County received two awards! The Spirit of North Carolina Awards offers United Ways in North Carolina communities with opportunities to honor organizations and individuals who exemplify the "spirit" of their community. Winners meet specific standards of achievement and are nominated by their local United Ways. United Way of North Carolina leads the award nomination and process and presents the award annually.

We are proud to share that our volunteer, Debbie Eller, received a Community Ambassador Award and Jamie Willis, former Executive Director of the United Way of Caldwell County, received the Community Resiliency: Disaster Relief and Recovery Award.

Debbie Eller is a huge advocate for students and teachers, previously serving over 20 years as the Executive Director of Communities in Schools of Caldwell County. Our previous United Way Director started her new position the week before school started. Our United Way operates a program called Classroom United, which is a vital resource center for teachers, and it opens when school is open, which was the following week. With the hiring process taking place and no other employees, the new Director was not starting until the end of September. Debbie stepped up to help run our vital resource center three days a week, 2.5 hours each day, so that it would be accessible to teachers in need of supplies for their classrooms. If she had not offered to help, 66 teachers during that time would not have been served. Debbie has stayed on to volunteer almost weekly to help onboard the new Executive Director until March 2026. In that time, Debbie has welcomed over 155 teachers, has sorted through boxes and boxes of donations, and has gotten Classroom United very organized. She has helped onboard new volunteers as well. We are extremely grateful for Debbie's service to our community and know that the success of our program would not be possible without her. We will be hiring a part time employee at the United Way of Caldwell County soon and Debbie has already stepped up again and offered her time to volunteer to help train the new staff member.

The Community Resiliency Award recognizes individuals who lead recovery and rebuilding efforts after a disaster or crisis in the community. In 2024, Jamie spearheaded the Hurricane Helene Disaster Recovery Fund and raised $97,000 in 3 weeks. Funds directly supported 485 families to help them rebuild and recover. Jamie quickly mobilized a supply drive the Monday after Helene and collected over 15,000+ supplies. With volunteers, she delivered 3,000 supplies to Collettsville School's feeding site by Friday and opened the United Way office for people who needed supplies, weeks after. Jamie was also part of a volunteer-led coalition created to help fill gaps for those unable to receive initial federal aid. Jamie served as a founding member and fiscal agent for the Caldwell County Long Term Recovery Group and although she is no longer employed by the United Way, she still serves in the role of Treasurer. The Long Term Recovery group has distributed $107,953.21 to date and has assisted over 16 families in Caldwell County. Even after she was no longer employed here, Jamie still took the time to visit one of our hardest hit areas recently, Collettsville, to educate citizens and provide support to encourage them to apply for assistance. Her work will leave a legacy and touch our community for years to come! Congratulations to both Jamie and Debbie for their leadership and spirit of service to our community.