As part of its statewide Day of Service, National Grid employees volunteered with the Salvation Army of Batavia to create community gardens. About15 employees were on scene on Friday morning clearing small trees, rototilling soil, and building vegetable beds for future planting.
“It’s going to be able to be used not only by our organization, but by anyone in the community who will be able to come and garden and plant, says Rachel Moore,” Captain at the Salvation Army.
“Our hope is going to be that we are going to have a very large fruitful vegetable garden for the upcoming season so we can supply fresh food to our pantry and our community meal program that we host on Tuesdays as well as our program for youth in the community on Friday nights.”
National Grid’s Day of Service is part of the company’s Project C initiative, which includes caring for and revitalizing our neighborhoods throughout WNY.
“We have 200 projects going on across NYS from Long Island to WNY, says Paul Gister, Jurisdiction Manager at National Grid.
“It’s just a different way to see National Grid employees as a volunteer, versus a lineman on a truck. They are working to improve our community action and engagement,” says Gister.
More than 2,000 National Grid employees participated in giving back to their local communities on Sept. 16th to celebrate a Day of Service across the company’s 26,000-square-mile New York service area, including multiple volunteer events across Western New York.
“I love this day,” says Tom Gozelski, Director of Overhead Lines with National Grid.
“The majority of us are in an office atmosphere each day. It’s like a family out here and that how we treat this, like our family.”
The initiative is part of Project C, National Grid’s Community Commitment to:
• Connect our communities to clean and sustainable energy.
• Care for our neighborhoods and their revitalization.
• Compassionately address the challenges our customers face, including environmental justice and social equity.
• Create the workforce that will help build New York’s clean energy delivery system.
• Collaborate with our customers, community partners, stakeholders and so many others to deliver the clean, fair, resilient and affordable energy future.
“We are really grateful to National Grid and the United Way for being able to come out and willing to offer their time and their manpower in order to make this dream a reality,” says Moore.
