From Donating School Supplies To Teaching Classes To Renovating Facilities, DPR Volunteers Time and Resources to Benefit Communities and Children

Whether they are giving needed supplies to local schools, holding community blood drives, supporting non-profit shelters, or participating in the nationwide “Rebuilding Together With Christmas in April,” DPR employees around the country are stepping forward in significant ways to give back to their local communities and children of all ages.

In all 18 DPR offices, volunteerism and community service represent a major component of the five-year “Base Camp” goals established to help DPR advance toward its mission: to be one of the most admired companies by the year 2030. “We will be as integral and indispensable to the communities we operate in as are the Boys and Girls Club and the Red Cross,” states one “vivid description” of how this mission will be achieved.

The many ways that DPR employees are volunteering their time and resources are as diverse as the communities in which they live and work. With Ever Forward as a core value, a strong emphasis has been placed on education and working with children.

“In San Diego, we are donating old plans that are used as drawing paper to a class of handicapped children, as well as reusable office supplies, such as filing bins, tape dispensers and binders with tab dividers, to local schools,” said Brenda Dantes of DPR.

Several offices have teamed up with organizations, such as the Sacramento Knights soccer team and Junior Achievement, to visit elementary schools - encouraging students to stay in school, helping them set long- and short-term goals, and teaching them basic business skills. As part of the alliance with the Knights, DPR’s Sacramento office also started a book distribution program and is continuing to collect books and redistribute them to local low-income schools. In addition, the Phoenix office participated in a construction management seminar for more than 180 local high school students to discuss future career opportunities and needed skill sets.

Adopting schools is popular throughout DPR. For example, the Special Services Group in Redwood City took the old Dean’s office and an adjacent computer lab at Menlo-Atherton High School and turned the space into a multi-purpose facility for the school’s Leadership Class. After completing some small construction projects for the Gateway High School, the San Francisco office has started tutoring students in the evenings and put together a week-long construction course during which the students built a stage for the school. Redwood City donated funds for the renovation of Francisco Middle School gymnasium floor in San Francisco’s North Beach. The original hard wood floor had not been refinished since new, in 1929!

As part of its Base Camp, the Austin office held a “Building Great Things” golf tournament last fall, raising money that went to Faith Home, an orphanage for HIV-positive children. The office also held a workday in April to provide repairs and upgrades to a local nursing home.

Community outreach took an entirely different form last year in the Seattle office, which provided exhibition space and sponsored monthly receptions for local artists to showcase work. “Both the artists and many in the architect and design community recognized the value of the work we were doing, and our participation is just one of the ways we are furthering our mission to become a truly vital member of our community,” commented Seattle DPR’s Roger Capestany.