Beth & Rob Reynolds: Life-Long Supporters ​

For fifty years, Rob and Beth Reynolds have been proud United Way donors. Two small moments influenced their generosity.

The first occurred in the mid-1950s when a campaigner knocked on Rob Reynolds door and he watched as his father gave a small donation. When the door was closed, his father told the impressionable Rob, “It doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money because I decided to make United Way my focus for a larger donation.”

Rob says his father knew what it felt like to lose everything because in the 1930s, his father lost his job and then their home.

“My dad learned early that life has good and bad breaks. He got to experience a bad break firsthand,” Rob recalls. “He learned two things. One, you should be helpful to people who’ve had those bad breaks. And two, when you buy a house, pay it off as fast as you can.”

Years later, Rob married Beth and they had two small children of their own. At the time, he was finishing up university and the family had no income. As Rob remembers,”We were flat broke.”

Rob and Beth returned home to find a piece of mail in their box from someone they did not know. Inside the envelope was a cheque for $100.

“We both just looked at each other and burst into tears. It was a gift out of nowhere,” recalls Beth. The gift was from a woman who wanted to encourage struggling students.

Rob and Beth have carried on this spirit of generosity. At first, Rob simply signed on for automatic payroll deductions through his company’s United Way workplace fundraising campaign.

“If we didn’t have the money right away, then I just paid over the year. And then each year, I gave a little more because it’s like a competition with yourself!”

As their income grew, their donations grew.

Then Rob followed in his father’s footsteps and volunteered to be his office’s United Way Employee Campaign Chair. He and his colleagues came up with many innovative ways to raise money: Casual Fridays, fun after work events, and phone campaigns.

Eventually he would take on a role in the Campaign Cabinet, calling on company leaders to give $1,250 or more annually as a Leader of the Way.

“You have to walk the talk,” he says. From that year on he gave at the Leader level, encouraging others through his influence and relationships to join him in supporting United Way.

“We both believe that if you give your money to United Way, it’s going to be spent properly,” Beth says as Rob recalls the impact of an All in for Youth tour, where they saw how wraparound supports lead to early student success. “It just makes you feel good, like you’ve made a difference.”

The Reynolds’ spirit of giving has not only impacted program participants over five decades, it has inspired their four children and many grandchildren to give back too, each in their own ways.

United Way believes we all have the power to take actions that will create impact across generations. The Reynolds’ legacy of giving shows how one small moment of generosity can grow in amazing ways.