Flawless weather marked the successful conclusion of Comcast Cares Day 2019 in Oregon/SW Washington. With 25 projects from Vancouver, WA, and Rainier, OR to Springfield, OR, Comcasters, family, friends, non-profit partners, neighbors, and local businesses all stepped up to support our communities.
A project at Elizabeth Page Elementary School in Springfield unexpectedly became our largest project, bringing more volunteers together than any of the others to help the school, including the creation of food pantry stocked up with donations from Comcast employees and community members. In another surprise, Comcast employee Mike White contributed a gorgeous bench, made from a fallen tree. Dawn Easley, one of the project leads, calls the bench a true labor or love. “Mike spent countless hours milling, plaining, sanding and staining and it turned out incredible.”
A first this year was a project at Free Geek, sorting electronics and taking donated computers apart for re-use or recycling. Response from the cadre of 20 volunteers was overwhelmingly positive. “Free Geek is a fantastic operation – it was really uplifting to see how they give free computers to volunteers who work there a certain number of hours,” said Dave Lehto, an engineer based in East Portland. I was really impressed with their recycling operation.” He added, “I’d like to go back again next year.”
An eight-foot tall pickle named Dillon, the team mascot for the Portland Pickles baseball team, made a guest appearance at the Lent School project in SE Portland. The sprawling K-8 school got a top-to-bottom makeover, with volunteers painting playgrounds and indoors, pulling weeds and spreading mulch, and cleaning windows and classrooms. Portland School Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero welcomed the Cares Day volunteers to what he called “one of the most diverse and most under-served” schools in the district. Principal Richard Smith was looking forward to Monday morning when the kids returned to school. “I can’t wait to see their faces when they see all the work that was done on the playground and in their classrooms.”
The projects in Beaverton got a nice shout-out from the Beaverton Valley Times newspaper, which highlighted the efforts at the Salvation Army Veterans and Family Center, where volunteers brightened up the place with paint and elbow grease. A new computer lab room, which The Comcast Foundation is supporting with an equipment grant, also received some TLC. TechOps supervisor JJ Newton called the work “paying back the people who defended the country I live in.”
With more than 2,000 volunteers from across the Oregon/SW Washington region participating, Comcast Cares Day 2019 had a transformative impact throughout many of our shared communities, and heartfelt thanks go out to every person who joined in.
