BY B.G. GREGG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[united way]](/editions/1998/09/03/unitedway_180x128.jpg)
Didier Jackson helps display the United Way goal on balloons at a Fountain Square rally.
(Steven M. Herppich photo)
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Cincinnati's United Way and Community Chest will attempt to raise a record $53.8 million this year.
Campaign chairman Daniel J. Meyer announced the goal Tuesday at Fountain Square. The exact amount, $53,830,000, was written out in balloons for the few hundred who attended the ceremony.
"How about that for our community?" shouted Mr. Meyer, chairman, president and CEO of Cincinnati Milacron.
"Success means giving children an opportunity to thrive, strengthening families, keeping neighborhoods vital places in which to live, and ensuring that people of all ages stay healthy and independent," he said.
He added that pace-setting campaigns have already raised $7 million, 13 percent of the overall goal.
United Way serves Hamilton, Clermont, Brown and parts of Butler counties in Ohio, and Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties in Kentucky.
Mr. Meyer has targeted a few hundred new area businesses in hopes of raising some of the money. The organization already runs campaigns in more than 1,950 workplaces.
The campaign kickoff featured TV personality Nick Clooney, the Pete Wagner Band, and a couple of Coca-Cola representatives who used a cannon-like apparatus to shoot United Way T-shirts into the crowd.
Motivational speaker Felix Thomas emphasized that United Way's more than 160 agencies depend on the money to help those in trouble.
"Somewhere in this magnificent city, a family is coming apart at the seams and no one knows where the pieces are going to fall," he said. "In Cincinnati, we have a tradition of helping each other."
The campaign ends Oct. 29.
![[united way]](/editions/1998/09/03/unitedway_550x391.jpg)