Jim Riordan likes to say that if you could fly above Dane County at 500 feet and peer through the rooftops on any given day, you would see people quietly working to address the needs of others from the time they are born through their elder years.

Anyone doing that Tuesday would have witnessed a flurry of such activity as the United Way of Dane County launched this year's $16.65 million fundraising campaign led by Riordan, president and CEO of WPS Health Insurance.

Before and after the midday kickoff at Warner Park, United Way sent more than 1,000 volunteers out to help with nearly 100 projects as part of its annual Days of Caring.

By the end of today, more than 2,200 volunteers will have lent a hand over three days. Efforts ranged from sprucing up the Mobile Play and Learn truck, which supports the United Way's Born Learning initiative by teaching parents how to help their children be prepared for kindergarten, to transforming an area of overgrown weeds, trees and bushes into a meditation garden at a West Side retirement community as part of the United Way's focus on helping seniors maintain self-reliance and independence.

"Everything that surrounds us makes us who we are," said Rita Giovannoni, CEO of the nonprofit Independent Living Retirement Community on Segoe Road, where 70 volunteers are helping create the new garden of native prairie plants. Residents will be able to spend time there reconnecting with the sights and smells of their younger days and engage in activities such as tai chi.

"Many of the residents had gardens in their former homes that they enjoyed," said Gordon Derzon, who is chairing Independent Living's $1.6 million capital campaign to fund renovations ranging from new carpeting and wallpaper to a new heating and air conditioning system.

One such resident is Art Palmer, 88, who developed agricultural products for Vita Plus Corp. and spent "at least 20 years" volunteering in the greenhouse at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, where he potted poinsettia shoots that grew into lush holiday plants.

"He's been my supervisor the whole time I've been here," said Jody Alexander, a master gardener who works part-time at Independent Living, starting seeds in a greenhouse — where Palmer and other residents have been known to gather at 2 a.m. to witness the spectacle of a night-blooming cereus — and tending a butterfly garden dotted with plants Palmer purchased at last year's UW Arboretum native plant sale.

"I love flowers," said Palmer, who has kept a keen watch as Alexander and a corps of volunteers have transformed the long neglected space.

In addition to weeds "6-to-7-feet tall," tree branches had darkened the area, shrubs hung over the sidewalk and grass never got mowed, said Alexander, who sought input from landscape architect and greenhouse volunteer Dennis Broske.

"He said we need a sustainable garden," Alexander said, adding that after the first couple years of nurturing, the coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, blazing star and other prairie plants will manage and multiply on their own.

After the first day of work on the new garden, Alexander said, "All the chairs had been moved around and people came out to sit."

"This was a weed patch," said Palmer, who now pronounces it, "Beautiful."

"It's very calming," Alexander said. And, she added, there are always birds, butterflies and chipmunks to watch. "There's life out here."