Eileen Rehberg retires from United Way of Greater Chattanooga

Neighborhood leaders lost a trusted ally in their ongoing fight against poverty, blight, gentrification and political irrelevance Friday when Eileen Rehberg, the longtime United Way of Greater Chattanooga director of community impact, retired.

"It has been my honor to serve you," Rehberg wrote Everlena Holmes, the former Glenwood Neighborhood Association president who's worked with Rehberg for years to support and develop leaders throughout Chattanooga's mostly Black neighborhoods, last week. "I leave with the spirit of those efforts that shaped our community as well as what can be accomplished, working together."

Rehberg, who came to the United Way in 2010 after working five years at the now-defunct Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies, plans to move to upstate New York.

After the news began spreading, an email chain between neighborhood leaders and community activists revealed a shared sense of loss and achievement.

"I have never met a person as committed to community work as you, especially in helping others to develop underserved neighborhoods by not only providing them with the data needed but being there to address any questions or concerns regarding the data," Holmes wrote Rehberg. "I and the neighborhood leadership, especially in East Chattanooga, will truly miss you."

"I am really going to miss her friendship, conversation, her ability to just listen, loyalty, expertise, opinion, information, team spirit, compassion, empathy and sympathy," wrote Marvene Noel, an Orchard Knob leader. "We are losing a trooper! Thank you for all you have done and given to us!!"

Rehberg, an expert data analyst who got her doctorate in public analysis and management from Cornell University and was often shadowed by college students learning to do their own research, created data sets that challenged and shaped Chattanooga's nonprofit world over the past decade by using a computer program to map needs in the community based on 211 calls - a system for social service referrals - and comparing those spots of need with the actual locations of nonprofit services.

In 2016, she used the mapping software to help local churches see their proximity to pockets of need, as well as the other churches and community resources they could better partner with to meet that need. She also played a key role in the United Way's Building Stable Lives, a mentoring program intended to help families navigate out of poverty.

In recent years, Rehberg became a critical consultant for neighborhood leaders overwhelmed by both the rapid pace of development and increasing economic pressure facing residents caught up in the change. As neighborhood leaders worked to unite and engage in the city's planning process for East Chattanooga, Rehberg armed them with data that would have typically been out of reach.

For example, when Boyce Station leaders started noticing signs of rapid gentrification, they went to Rehberg, who collected and analyzed parcel data so they could know the number of owners with out-of-state mailing addresses in Boyce Station had increased significantly.

"While I first admired Eileen for her research that helped United Way make faster, smarter decisions for community, immediately I saw that Eileen is not just a data analyst," said Lesley Scearce, president of United Way of Greater Chattanooga. "Eileen beautifully connects people, their strengths, assets, needs and most importantly, their voices in a way that brings life and hope. Simply put, Eileen's life work was investing in people, and we are all better for it."

Scearce said she plans to replace Rehberg but is still determining how the role will look in the future.

Contact Joan McClane at jmcclane@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6601. Follow her on Twitter @JoanMcClaneCTFP.

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