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Live United Day at the Chattanooga Market offers an interactive, fun way to involve the whole family in supporting the local nonprofit. Sunday, Aug. 16, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., you can stop by for face painting, bookmark making and other arts and crafts, air darts and other games; donate school supplies for the Stuff the Bus annual campaign or buy a T-shirt to support United Way; or just check out the market’s variety of vendors. Visit uwchatt.org/www/docs/1393 to learn more.
For the longest time, it was just a date circled on a calendar: Aug. 14, 2015.
Eva Dillard, the 66-year-old president and CEO of United Way of Greater Chattanooga, has had the day underlined for months: Retirement Day. Always a meticulous planner, Dillard wanted the date set in advance so her successor could be in place well before her exit. That’s what baby boomers do, they plan their work and work their plans.
For many months the date seemed inert – a simple placeholder, not a cause for internal drama. But now, as the days dwindle and the exit sign illuminates, Dillard is in a more reflective mood. “I realized in about March, as it became more of a reality, that it is an emotional time,” says Dillard, a native of Mississippi and graduate of Ole Miss, whose sweetly Southern accent still occasionally sprouts a Magnolia State inflection.
Dillard is a gentle spirit, a naturally shy person who disdains self-aggrandizement to the point that she doesn’t even like looking in a mirror. Retrospection is not her favorite pastime. But you don’t work at a place for 28 years, forging friendships and alliances along the way, and approach the end without a note of melancholy.