The final numbers are in; on Saturday, April 30, more than 2,200 Comcast employees and their families and friends volunteered to improve more than a dozen locations throughout Western Washington and in Spokane as part of Comcast’s “Comcast Cares Day.”
One of the things we try to do is celebrate the volunteers. A couple of the ways we do that are ask volunteers to take pictures, and even make videos of their friends. Our nonprofit partners often invite the local media to come watch.
The purpose of this post is to collect all the reports we can about the event, so that volunteers can look back on what they accomplished without digging through a bunch of bookmarks and notes. I’m sure I missed something, and if so, let me know.
Aberdeen
Rebuilding Together’s Rebuilding Day 2011
Coordinating Comcast office: Aberdeen Field Fulfillment Office
Rebuilding Together believes in a safe and healthy home for every person; it preserves affordable homeownership and revitalizes communities by providing free home modifications and repairs, making homes safer, more accessible, and more energy efficient.
Here’s the link to see a slideshow of the day in Aberdeen
Bremerton
Holly Ridge Center
Coordinating office: Bremerton Field Fulfillment Office
Holly Ridge Center has been serving children and adults with disabilities for nearly 50 years. Next year we’ll work on getting some pictures of this event.
Custer (near Bellingham)
Custer Elementary School
Coordinating Comcast Office: Bellingham Field Fulfillment Office
Custer Elementary School educates and cares for about 325 elementary school students.
Click here to see a slideshow of our folks helping the school.
Federal Way
Boy Scouts of America Pacific Harbor Council’s Camp Kilworth
Coordinating Comcast office: Auburn Field Fulfillment Office
The 40-acre Camp Kilworth is a youth day and night camp site.
Not only do we have still pictures – click here to see a slideshow at Camp Kilworth– but we have video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJVgSFXCC74]
Kirkland
Peter Kirk Elementary School
Coordinating Comcast office: Redmond Field Fulfillment Office
Peter Kirk educates 545 elementary school students.
Click here to see a slideshow of Comcast Cares Day in Kirkland.
Kirkland has strong community media: here’s accounts in the Kirkland Reporter and in the Kirkland Patch
Olympia
GRuB (Garden Raised Bounty)
Coordinating Comcast Office: Olympia Field Fulfillment Office
Garden-Raised Bounty (GRuB) is a grassroots non-profit organization dedicated to good food for people. The organization grows inspired, self-confident and community-minded youth through educational and employment opportunities. The group also helps low-income families and seniors to help themselves by building raised-bed gardens at their homes.
Click here to watch a short video about GRuB and Comcast Cares Day:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRk3-okRN6g]
Parkland
L’Arche Farms
Coordinating Comcast Office: Puyallup Field Fulfillment Office
L’Arche Tahoma Hope Farm & Gardens strives to offer a safe and welcoming environment that provides meaningful farm and garden work to persons with developmental disabilities. Through the efforts of the workers, L’Arche Farms is able to supply organic produce to the local farmers markets and food banks.
The project got a lot of attention. Tacoma Weekly spent a lot of time out here; check out the Tacoma Weekly story about Comcast Cares Day here.
Click here for a link to the Flickr photos, and then a video follows. The quote at the end is priceless.
Seattle
El Centro de La Raza (The Center for People of All Races)
Coordinating Comcast Office: Seattle Field Fulfillment Office
El Centro de la Raza provides comprehensive services to the community through 32 different programs and services, including human and emergency services, education and skill-building programs, community building and development, and child and youth programs.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyN6Y40bgQ]
Snohomish
The Farm Youth Outreach
Coordinating Comcast office: Everett Field Fulfillment Office
The Farm Youth Outreach helps homeless children and their families with food and clothing. In 2008, the American Red Cross of Snohomish County named the organization’s founder, Bruce Karr, as Humanitarian of the Year.
The Everett Herald had a real nice story about this and our project in Sultan, which you can read here.
You can click here to see a slideshow about The Farm project. That’s the slideshow on flickr; one of the employees put together another slideshow, with music. And here’s the video!
Spokane
Boys and Girls Clubs of Spokane County
Coordinating Comcast office: Spokane Field Fulfillment Office
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Spokane County provides educational programs, mentoring, recreational sports leagues, art and music classes to more than 4,000 at-risk youth a year at three club locations.
Click here to see the slideshow of the day in Spokane. Here’s a video about the day too:
Sultan
Volunteers of America’s Sky Valley Resource Center
Coordinating Comcast Office: Lynnwood and Everett Call Centers
Sky Valley Resource Center helps individuals and families with a number of needed services. Services offered include a preschool, gang and violence prevention for teens, a senior center and a food bank.
We were surprised and delighted that Volunteers of America Western Washington did a video themselves of our volunteers; watch it here.
Tacoma
Network Services
Coordinating Comcast office: Fife Call Center
Network Tacoma assists homeless families with children by providing transitional housing, resources and a program to help them achieve self-sufficiency.
Here are some pictures in Tacoma.
Just as a concluding note, one of the surprises our folks saw was a graduation that day: a homeless person was moving from homelessness into permanent housing. Several of the volunteers said they were really touched.
