Volunteers Build Playground In Just Seven Hours
Posted September 27, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A newly-formed group comprised of about 100 community volunteers and some 500 employees from 20 corporations were up at the crack of dawn Wednesday morning building a playground for children in the Lawrence Heights area.
The volunteers constructed the new play structure in just seven hours.
Wednesday’s effort marked the first initiative under the newly-formed Corporate Council on Volunteering, which encourages Canadian businesses, both large and small, to support employee volunteerism.
The companies are urged to raise 150,000 volunteer hours by the end of this year.
About 20 CEOs, Mayor David Miller and other politicians rolled up their sleeves to take part in the playground building process.
“If you’re running a business in the community, what we do at Best Buy, we open stores in communities, you have to be a part of it and letting people give back their time is critical,” Best Buy Canada president Kevin Layden said.
The initiative has also received major support from the non-profit organization KaBoom!, which strives to create better places to play for children across the continent. The project in Lawrence Heights marks the group’s 51st project in Canada.
“[The] kids are ecstatic. This was their vision,” community recreation director Don Boyle said.
For more information on the work KaBoom! does, click here.
