Picture a little brown-eyed, brown-haired boy. He's one of three sons of a mother who was deported and a father who doesn't want him. He was abused by his mother and spent five weeks in a body cast, left with permanent physical damage. He and his brothers were shuttled back and forth between Utah and Mexico, living on garbage when no one was around to care. When his brothers stayed with their father, the caregiver declined to take the broken one.

It's not a pretty picture -- not until Joy O'Bannion, the director of the Family Support and Treatment Center in Utah County, tags on the happy ending.

"Think how you would feel as a mother when you tell your son that you're going to be able to adopt him, and he says, 'Now I won't be nobody's family,' " O'Bannion said with tears in her eyes. "Not very good English, but he's working on that, too."

For her audience, dozens of women asked to join a new philanthropic organization in conjunction with United Way, the message was simple: It's up to you to change the world. Claralyn Hill, a local attorney and an organizer of Women in Philanthropy, said the women in that room at the Riverwoods Country Club in Provo are leaders in their churches, businesses, homes and communities and are trying to make a difference.

"The reason you're here is that we know you're trying to do what's right and you really care about our kids," she said.

The purpose of the organization, presented at the inaugural luncheon and attended by women from throughout Utah Valley, is threefold. Laurie Loveland, another organizer, discussed the research that has been done, through United Way and others, to determine the area's greatest needs. They are building self-sufficient families, preparing children to succeed in school and beyond and creating a cohesive community.

Being in control financially is important because 16 percent of the county lives below the poverty line, very few people report saving any of their income and last year almost 22,000 people filed for bankruptcy, a 6 percent increase compared to the year before. The focus will be on providing financial counseling and assistance to teach people to manage their money.

The second goal, to prepare children for success, is intended to give children a healthy foundation on which to form the rest of their lives. About a third of Utah third-graders read below their grade level and child abuse cases have increased by 33 percent throughout the last several years.

"As women, I think this is going to hit us all right there," Loveland said.

The third, creating a cohesive community, is necessary because of the differences in culture, she said. A third of Utah residents are not native to the Beehive State, and the Hispanic population grew by more than 200 percent between 1990 and 2000. The goal is to recognize and embrace differences, then promote independence and self-sufficiency, not handouts.

"We as women have an opportunity to be a part of that," she said.

And that, Hill told the group, is what Women in Philanthropy is all about -- encouraging women to leverage their leadership, their influence and their passions to create change. Part of it is fundraising, as evidenced by the yearly donations requisite to being part of the organization. The rest is planning, educating, learning, sharing and getting involved.

"We locally get to decide what we do with this group. But that's about all we've decided," she said, adding people could decide their levels of involvement. "So we're gonna start this group, and we get to do whatever we want with it."

For more information, go to www.unitedwayuc.org.

Heidi Toth can be reached at 344-2543 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it