Media Releases

May 8, 2008

Thousands give back as part of United Way's Annual Day of Caring

Special education and literacy projects highlighs the day's events

Rochester, NY –

More than 10,000 people from nearly 160 companies, along with students from several area school districts, took a break from their offices and classrooms today to volunteer as part of United Way’s 16th annual Day of Caring. The volunteers completed about a million dollars worth of projects - which is incredibly helpful to agencies that may not otherwise be able to afford to have them done.

New this year, United Way and the City of Rochester partnered to host additional education and literacy volunteer projects at several city schools - Roberto Clemente Elementary School #8, James Duffy School #12, Henry W. Longfellow School #36, Mary McLeon Bethune School #45 and World of Inquiry School #58. Volunteers read books to students, among other projects.

To kick off that effort, M&T Bank announced they are donating $10,000 through United Way to fund a summer literacy program in five Rochester schools, and to launch a new program geared to ensure classrooms have supplies of books for students. Half of the grant money from M&T Bank will be earmarked for a summer literacy program being developed by the Center for Youth Services. The other $5,000 will go to the Rochester Education Foundation (REF), which is launching a ‘Teachers Choose Books’ program to help city educators obtain books for literacy events in city school classrooms and libraries.

“Literacy is one of the key stepping stones to academic and economic success, and the United Way Day of Caring has generated resources for two important literacy initiatives,” said Dan Burns, president of the Rochester Division of M&T Bank, and chair of United Way’s Community Impact division. “If we all rally around this issue as a community, we can improve early childhood literacy and make a difference in the lives of so many children."

Teams volunteering at the nearly 500 other project sites in and around Rochester worked on projects, such as basic indoor spring cleaning, to raking, weeding and planting flowers, to painting rooms, building decks and picnic tables, and washing windows. They were also invited to a free luncheon sponsored by the Clarion Riverside Hotel, as a way to say thank you for volunteering.

Also today, as part of their commitment to United Way and our community, Xerox President Ursula Burns delivered a $1million check as part of the company’s corporate support of the 2008 United Way Campaign. The campaign, which kicked off in March, runs through the end of May.

Since 1993, the Day of Caring has mobilized volunteers and provided them with opportunities to lend their time, talents, and energy at local nonprofit organizations.  For information on volunteer opportunities available in our community year-round, please visit Volunteer Connection by going to www.uwrochester.org and clicking on Volunteer.

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