Covenant House Alaska

United Way Day of Caring Volunteers Go the Extra Mile in Their Efforts to Help Our Kids

Each year Covenant House Alaska benefits from countless hours of volunteer service donated by local Alaskans who want to make a difference in the life of kids in need. This year’s biggest volunteer event, Day of Caring, actually turned into three separate Days of Caring.

Day of Caring brings together United Way Member Agencies and local businesses in an effort to help local charities through volunteer service work. Volunteers provide the muscle, hard work and expertise for many improvement projects that would not be possible without their help.

The original event was scheduled for September 12th but was rescheduled due to the tragic events of September 11th in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington. This year our community partners were Phillips Alaska, Williams, and the AMHTA Land Trust Office. Although each of these groups had to reschedule as many as 30 volunteers each, they all came through for us in a big way.

Phillips Alaska employees did a wonderful job at Passage House, our transitional living program for parenting and pregnant teens. They built a beautiful new staircase off of the back deck and prepared the grounds for winter. The project took much longer than anticipated but our friends from Phillips went the extra mile, staying well into the evening to make sure the staircase was well built and would last a long time. Our hats go off to Phillips for their extra effort.

Williams was not to be outdone and came in force a week later with 30 volunteers to help us prepare the basement of our Community Service Center for renovation. The basement is being remodeled to house our Job Development Program, which prepares youth for success in today’s job market. Williams volunteers moved a mountain of boxes, and other items that had been stored in our basement.

AMTHA Land Trust Office rounded off Day of Caring part three by painting the entire dining room at our 40 bed Crisis Center and doing an excellent job of deep cleaning our kitchen. The dedication of all of our community partners made a real impact on our kids by showing them first hand that people care about them, and by doing such a wonderful job on these much needed projects.

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