Giving Back: GZA's Community Service Grants for 2024

GZA demonstrates the firm’s core value of caring for our communities in multiple ways, including our annual Community Service Grant Program. It is open to employees actively involved in non-profit organizations who demonstrate their commitment to the non-profit’s cause and a compelling need for grant funds. 

Recently, employees who received 2023 grants shared details of the impact the GZA funding had on the organization with which they volunteer.

Laundry Love (Love. Dignity. Detergent), Megan Elwell, Scientist I, Providence, RI

Laundry Love Newport assists students, families, and unhoused residents of Newport County with the costs and supplies associated with washing clothing and bedding. Clean clothing is critical to a student’s well-being and allows a child to feel confident at school and focus on his/her education; for a family, the expense of doing laundry can be cost-prohibitive, and Laundry Love’s assistance helps them stay on top of laundry without sacrificing other essential needs; for unhoused individuals, the increased self-esteem from wearing clean clothes can help open doors to employment, housing opportunities, and helps provide a sense of dignity. Laundry Love is a national initiative. The Newport chapter is run by Strategic Prevention Partnerships, a larger inter-agency network of professionals addressing the needs of the Newport County community and identifying gaps in behavioral health services. Since the laundromat serves as a diverse community space, Laundry Love is in an ideal position to also introduce its patrons to other assistance programs that may be available to them. 

Megan Elwell has been an active volunteer for 2 years.  GZA’s funds were used to purchase laundry supplies and to cover the cost of using washers/ dryers.  Her role has been to assemble and distribute the laundry kits.

For more information see  https://strategicprevention.org/laundry-love/  

Philadelphia Blind Hockey, Kelly McGuire, Senior Administrative Assistant, Philadelphia

Philadelphia Blind Hockey, formed in 2022, gives athletes with visual impairments the opportunity to learn and play ice hockey, all free of charge.  Although played in Canada since the 1970s, blind hockey only came to the U.S. in 2014; there are now 19 visually impaired teams in the U.S.

Philadelphia Blind Hockey has eight players from ages 6-13; they meet two times per month. Next season, they are adding an adult team. GZA’s grant funds were used to:  purchase regulation sized blind hockey nets which are smaller than typical hockey nets (3 feet vs 4 feet);  buy adaptive pucks, which are made of metal, three times the size of a typical hockey puck, and have eight ball-bearings inside, allowing players to hear them as they glide across the ice; and outfit the team with practice and game jerseys as well as equipment bags. (One young player exclaimed that the day they got their equipment “was the best day ever…because now they were REAL hockey players!”)

All coaches and guides are volunteers. Kelly McGuire has been an off-ice volunteer since the program’s launch. Philadelphia Blind Hockey was started by Kelly’s daughter, Kelsey who is a teacher of the Visually Impaired at Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia.  For her dedication and successful launch of the team, this year Kelsey was nominated for the prestigious NHL Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award.

For more information, see:  https://www.philadelphiablindhockey.com/  

Backpack Buddies, Stephen Kline, Principal, Manhattan

While children from families who live at or near the federal poverty level are eligible for free or reduced breakfast and lunch on school days, Backpack Buddies is a nationwide volunteer effort that helps fill the gap for these families by providing weekend nourishment.  Steve and his family have volunteered for years with a Backpack Buddies initiative that fights food insecurity in East Harlem, New York. 

The local initiative with which Steve Kline and his family work was launched in 2015 and began by serving 10 children. The program has expanded with the growing need and now serves 50 children and their families. It is primarily run by student volunteers, and Steve’s son has been involved almost since it started. The family is active in all aspects of the program from packing the bags of food, to inventory and coordination, to community outreach.  Backpacks are stocked with food for six meals plus two healthy snacks for each weekend during the school year and throughout the summer. The supply is ample enough to feed not just the children in the program, but a family of four.

Thanks to GZA’s 2023 grant, 1,150 additional meals were provided to families in need. The Backpack Buddies team also provided 1,600 sandwiches (Sandwich Saturdays) and snacks to a local shelter and filled an emergency food pantry for college students in need of food. 

For more information, see:  https://shaaraytefilanyc.org/backpackbuddies  

The 2024 Community Service Grant awardees were also announced: 

• Band Instrument Renewal Drive (BIRD) of the Rhode Island Wind Ensemble (Rick Ecord/Providence): Rick is a co-lead of this organization, which collects used instruments and pays to have them repaired as needed for use in urban school programs, increasing opportunities for children in Rhode Island to receive the benefits of instrumental music education. Rick also helps raise money for BIRD by performing in benefit concerts. 
• Appalachian Service Trip (Chris Mayne/Glastonbury): Chris accompanied his high school age daughter and approximately 53 others on a service trip to help make improvements to often substandard living conditions of 10-15 families in Appalachia who would not otherwise have the funds or ability to complete the work, using a week of his own PTO for the trip.
• Howell Nature Center (Tanya Simm/Livonia):  Tanya volunteers at at this wildlife rehabilitation clinic multiple times per month to care for the habitats of Max, a Red Tailed Hawk, and Ralph, a Turkey Vulture; they are both unable to live in the wild due to broken wings. 

A GZA Core Value

Care for our Communities:  We operate under charitable and sustainable principles as a positive and active member of the communities in which, and for which, we work.

GZA donates approximately $75,000 annually through its Charitable Giving and Community Service actions. In addition to the Community Service Grants program, these include: a charity match program for annual giving; donations to periodic campaigns such as natural disasters; office initiatives such as holiday gift programs, food drives and volunteer events; and corporate and local office donations.