Day of Caring 2015 connects companies, volunteers with huge community impact
The weather was uncooperative, but the impact was just as great.
On September 11, the National Day of Service, United Way’s 24th Annual Day of Caring brought over 600 volunteers from 43 companies across the Greater Seacoast Region together for one purpose: to make a difference.
“Day of Caring is everything that United Way values,” said Cindy Boyd, Regional Director of United Way of the Greater Seacoast. “People from the community coming together on behalf of the area’s non-profits, rolling up their sleeves and delivering some much-needed help—it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Or worthwhile. In total, the 58 projects the volunteers tackled exceeded $90,000 worth of value. The labor and services offered far-reaching consequence to the 43 non-profits. The team from BottomLine Technologies cleaned Prescott Park, Federal Savings Bank and TE Subcom sent volunteers to the Homesless Center at Strafford County to paint and landscape and Newmarket International’s group scrubbed Seacoast Community School from top to bottom.
And at New Generation in Greenland, NH, the volunteer team from NextEra Energy Seabrook Station showed up at just the right time.
“Our refrigerator died last night,” said Jenni Westbrook, Case Manager for New Generation, a shelter for homeless mothers. “We didn’t have it as a project request originally, but the volunteers said ‘No problem’ and they removed the broken fridge and installed the new one like that.”
The impromptu refrigerator install coincided with a series of projects that included carpet shampooing, staple removal, furniture moving, tree trimming, picnic table deconstruction and base-building for a portable bathroom.
“Everything we had to have done, got done,” said Westbrook. “And they did all of the work efficiently and with a great attitude. It’s a tremendous benefit to us and is exactly what we need.”
Day of Caring was sponsored by Bottomline Technologies, Nextera Energy Seabrook Station, Optima Bank, Newmarket International, Eastern Bank, GreenPages, Heinemann, Unitil, and Paradigm Health Plans.