Tackling Hunger: B:CIVIC Members in the Community
Our second B:CIVIC Academy is this Wednesday, October 21! Attendees will enjoy an interactive panel discussion with representatives from Kaiser Permanente, 34 Degrees and Albertsons/Safeway (if you haven’t RSVP’d yet, limited seats remain, so save your seat soon!)
While we can’t wait to hear the impacts that the panelist’s companies have made on hunger in Colorado as well as lessons learned along the way, we also want to highlight B:CIVIC member initiatives in the area. Ask and you shall receive! Our members show that there is some serious good brewing in Denver’s corporate giving scene.
“At DaVita we believe in being good stewards of resources and participating citizens of our community, which is why we’re committed to supporting organizations like B:CIVIC. We contribute to various programs aimed to end hunger in metro Denver, including Project Angel Heart and Urban Peak, among others, that meet the needs of students receiving low and reduced lunch services.” – Nancy Walters, corporate social responsibility manager at DaVita HealthCare Partners
Janus Donates More Than 1,000 Snack Packs to DPS Students in Need
Each day, hundreds of DPS students go to school without knowing where they will sleep that night or where their next weekend meal will come from. And that’s not their only challenge, getting to class is hurdle on its own without dependable transportation and often they are without the proper clothing or supplies. They feel alone, embarrassed and frustrated.?But with the desire to blend in with their peers, the impact of personal pride and, at times, an anxiety for how they will provide for their younger siblings, these students do not always surface and their issues struggles can remain concealed.
Janus Gives Back
The Janus team stepped up to the plate to combat these conditions during the Have a Heart for Homeless Children Food Drive. Through this effort, Janus employees donated nonperishable food items and fully constructed Snack Packs for the DPS Educational Outreach Program, an organization who aims to foster education by providing children identified as experiencing homelessness with the most basic needs.
In all, Janus contributed a total of 1,100 snack packs and $1,475 in monetary donations. These contributions were delivered to George Washington High School, the DPS school with the highest percentage of students in the program, and to the EOP administrative building for future use.
Every year the Denver Post Charities operates Season to Share. With the generous support of donors and matching funds provided by the McCormick Foundation, grants are made to qualified nonprofit organizations that focus on child and youth education, health and wellness, homelessness and hunger.
The hunger funding area supports Food banks and other large scale programs in areas areas where severe gaps for nutritional services exist, or that address the nutritional needs of specific groups such as children, families and seniors.
Eligible Programs include:
- Food Banks: Organizations that support the efforts of community hunger-relief agencies in high-need areas, and/or provide benefits linkage, job training and other poverty alleviation strategies
- Multi-Service Network: Includes community networks (multi-agency collaborations) providing comprehensive crisis-to-stabilization services aligned with hunger-relief efforts
- Childhood Hunger-Relief Initiatives: Addresses acute needs of low income children/youth at times when they are at most risk of hunger (before/after school, weekend, holidays, and summertime)
- Systems Support: program supporting an agency’s ability to affect systemic change by promoting policies that bring additional resources to a sector and/or leading coordinated planning initiatives shared by multiple stakeholders.
Does your company have a hunger initiative you would like us to highlight on the blog or at the B:CIVIC Academy? Please email us and we’ll help you spread the word!
The CIVIC 50
The Civic 50, an initiative of Points of Light, in partnership with Bloomberg LP, honors the 50 most community-minded companies in the nation each year as determined by an annual survey.
Benchmarking and sharing the best practices of community engagement offers companies that participate in The Civic 50 a roadmap for using their time, skills, and other resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business.
Survey opens Monday, June 2nd and closes on Friday, August 15, 2014. Companies with annual revenue of $1 billion or more are eligible for consideration.
For example, in 2013, the top 5 companies based on organizational commitment which measured the scope of a company’s community engagement program, broad-based employee involvement, community investment, advocacy and leadership were:.
1. Morgan Stanley
2. Capital One
3. Bank of America
4. Apollo Education Group.
5. Alcoa
Click here to view all the 2013 CIVIC50.