Over the course of three days, volunteers prepped, painted, installed furniture, and completely revitalized the Family Resource Center located at the Lion Creek Crossings housing development, which is also home to our SparkPoint Oakland Center.  The Resource Center works closely with SparkPoint to serve the families that live in the housing complex, as well as other neighborhood families.

The Resource Center is a great place for families year-round because it offers a number of services, including after-school activities, a computer lab, homework help, as well as summer camp. These complement SparkPoint’s offerings, which help families improve their finances, find jobs, manage their debt, and enroll in higher education programs.

It was a lot of work, but the volunteers were in really good spirits, and were able to complete the rather big job in just three days.  We’d like to extend a huge thanks to the all volunteers that helped out, and especially to Abbott Labs, which also provided some additional funding so we could purchase supplies for the makeover.

If you’d like to get involved through a volunteer activity for your company or group, let us know. You can leave a comment, or contact Aditi Aggarwal, aaggarwal@uwba.org, 415.808.4407.

(all photos by Ed Oh)

UPDATED! Winning Trip includes a five-day/four-night trip from 2/3/11 – 2/7/11 for the winner and one guest to North Texas to attend Super Bowl XLV, currently scheduled to take place on 2/6/11. Trip consists of standard double occupancy hotel accommodations — one room for four nights — and $700 spending money awarded in the form of a check for the winner only, which may be used towards round trip transportation to North Texas and two tickets to Super Bowl XLV. For full details and legalese go here.

In the last 10 years UPS workers have donated more $13 million to United Ways of Northern California

This summer, UPS and its employees and retirees will reach the exceptional milestone of $1 billion in total contributions to United Way since the company began its annual workplace campaigns in 1982.

“UPS is a driving force for change in our communities. The company and its employees continually raise the bar for United Way’s Global Corporate Leaders and are among our most valued partners,” said Brian Gallagher, president and CEO of United Way Worldwide. “Reaching a billion dollars in giving is a remarkable milestone. It not only speaks to generosity that is second-to-none, it’s indicative of their tireless and unwavering commitment to strengthening communities and improving lives throughout the world.”

In 2009, UPS’s total philanthropy reached nearly $100 million, including more than $55 million from their 2009 workplace campaign. UPS has been the top corporate giver to United Way for nine of the last 10 years. UPS employees and their families also contributed more than 1.2 million hours of volunteer service last year through the company’s Global Volunteer Month and Neighbor-to-Neighbor program. UPS has twice won the United Way Spirit of America Award, United Way’s highest national honor for corporate citizenship and measurable community impact.

“To my knowledge, UPS is the first company ever to have contributed $1 billion through one organization, a tremendous accomplishment both for our employees and the communities that benefit from United Way services,” said The UPS Foundation President Ken Sternad. “Wherever there is a stop light or stop sign in America, there is likely a UPS driver passing by; they are part of the community, they see the needs, and they have been a key part of the $1 billion story. We appreciate the recognition that our drivers, and our company, is receiving from United Way.”

Locally, UPS and its employees have contributed millions of dollars and volunteer hours to the Bay Area. We are proud to have them as our partners. So when you see your UPS driver, tell him or her, thank you!

You can also sign an online thank you card for UPS here.

Strong support for programs like RE4TA is why BRE Properties was recently named Spirit of the Bay award winners

For the last three years, MatchBridge has teamed up with the real estate industry to offer the youth they serve an leg up in finding positions within the industry. The program is called Real Estate 4 Tomorrow’s Adults (RE4TA) and is a partnership between MatchBridge, United Way of the Bay Area, and the San Francisco Real Estate sector.

While RE4TA has created many outstanding partnerships for MatchBridge, one company has stood out in its dedication to the community and youth employment. Year after year, BRE Properties has gone above and beyond for the RE4TA initiative. This is why they are MatchBridge’s employer of the month!

In its first year, Connie Moore, BRE Properties’ CEO, stepped up to head the Founders’ Circle, comprised of many prestigious firms including: AMB Property Corp., BRE Properties, Cushman & Wakefield, Sares Regis Group, Sunset Development, TMG Partners, Webcor Builders and UDR Inc. Since then, Connie has provided steady leadership, spoken on behalf of the program on numerous occasions, and has gone above and beyond behind-the-scenes to support the MatchBridge program at every opportunity.

Throughout the years, BRE Properties has broken the record for creating the most placements for young jobseekers interested in the industry. BRE’s aggressive approach to creating opportunities for young jobseekers truly exemplifies the concept of building up the workforce of tomorrow.

In the past, Connie Moore has even personally come in with a team of managers to lead RE4TA seminars to help guide and instruct the interns as they start their careers.

This summer, 36 internships were provided by MatchBridge’s RE4TA program, five of them with BRE Properties. During their term, interns have the opportunity to look further into real-estate specific roles like property management and residential sales or they can choose to sign onto more general departments like marketing, office management, and outside sales.

RE4TA, and the experiences of its participants, would not be possible without the continuing dedication and support of companies like BRE Properties. MatchBridge thanks all of the volunteers, companies, and interns for taking part in this year’s program and investing in tomorrow’s workforce.

50% of all food distributed by Second Harvest Food Bank is perishable and includes a large amount of produce

United Way of the Bay Area recently awarded Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties a $28,000 grant to provide infrastructure and capacity upgrades for their partner emergency food pantries.  As opposed to a soup kitchen, an emergency food pantry is a program which provides non-perishable and perishable food to families and individuals to take home and prepare.

Because 50% of all food distributed by Second Harvest Food Bank is perishable and includes a large amount of produce, local pantries have a need for additional cold storage capacity and shelving.

“With this grant we will purchase and deliver refrigerators, freezers and shelving to 12 of our partner food pantries, thereby increasing their efficiency and effectiveness in storing  and distributing food,” said Tami Cardenas, Director of Development for Second Harvest Food Bank. “In this way we will help strengthen the food safety net in San Mateo County.”

Immediate and long-term outcomes of this grant include: increasing the number of people served by these 12 pantries by an average of 5%, to 10,874 people annually; and increasing the amount of produce and perishable food available at these 12 pantries by an average of 10%, to 159,322 pounds annually.

“We are grateful to United Way for their support,” said Cardenas. “We rely on our pipeline of partner agencies to help us distribute food to people in need in our community.”

Second Harvest Food Bank is the primary source of donated, surplus, and purchased food for nonprofit agencies in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.  Food pantries partners receive an average of 83% of the food they distribute to clients from Second Harvest.  The Food Bank is committed to providing ongoing infrastructure and capacity support to the Emergency Food Network in order to efficiently alleviate local hunger.