After working with the United Way of the Coastal Empire for 17 years, six of those spent as the director of Bryan County’s United Way programs, Janice Blunt has decided to hand over the reins.

"I just felt like if I was going to spend some years smelling the roses, I needed to retire young enough to plant the bushes," Blunt said with a laugh.

Blunt, 66, will retire in May. Though she has spent six years working with residents in Bryan County, Blunt said her career started differently.

Blunt said she received a call about a temporary, grant-funded position with the United Way.

"I was unemployed because the job I had dissolved, I had just put my mother in a nursing home, it was Christmas Eve and I had the flu," she said. "They called me from the Department of Labor and said there was a temporary job at the United Way."

The position was for an information specialist for the First Call for Help with United Way of the Coastal Empire, she said, the original version of the 211 information hotline. She quickly accepted the offer.

Read full story in Wednesday's Bryan County News.