The Annual Day of Caring: A Facilities Management Tradition
Approximately 100 UVA Facilities Management employees participated in the 2014 United Way Laurence E. Richardson Day of Caring on Wednesday, September 17, volunteering their skills and time for various maintenance and improvement projects at three different Charlottesville non-profit organizations.
Since the early 1990s, Facilities Management has been involved with the Day of Caring, a yearly event that includes thousands of volunteers completing hundreds of projects in the Charlottesville area. For the past decade, Facilities Management has sent a large group of its employees to Camp Holiday Trails every year.
"“It is an amazing day based on the sheer number of [Facilities Management employees] who come out … and how grateful they are to be here.” Camp Holiday Trails Executive Director Tina LaRoche said of the event. “Now we have people who have been coming for 10 years, so they are familiar with the camp and they come back and check on the projects they did last year.”
The camp — which was established in 1973 — provides kids with special health needs the opportunity to experience a positive camp experience on the 75-acre property at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In addition to the maintenance projects Facilities Management volunteers typically perform each year — such as cleaning cabins, annual electrical and HVAC inspections and weeding garden beds — the group also took on some new projects, including installing a drying rack for sleeping bags in the basement of a cabin, removing a large maple tree within the horse-riding ring and cleaning out culverts underneath the roadways. While many of the volunteers are skilled tradespeople assisting with projects within their specialty, the group also includes Facilities Management staff who don’t regularly perform these physical tasks. The gathering provides an opportunity for employees across different departments to come together and socialize within an environment that differs from their usual work settings.
“It’s a break from the everyday and you get to see a lot of people you only see a few times a year,” said Roofer Supervisor Shannon Wood, who has been participating in the Day of Caring for the past six years.
Housekeeper Renee Rush volunteered at the camp for the first time this year, spending the day cleaning the interior of the cabins on the property.
“I never went to camp when I was a child so it’s cool to come up here,” said Renee, who has worked at Facilities Management for over eight years.
Supervisory Historic Preservation Architect Jody Lahendro serves on the board of Camp Holiday Trails and works with the organization every year to identify projects best suited for the Day of Caring. Jody then works with Construction & Renovation Services Business Manager & Scheduler Doug Morris to coordinate which tradespeople and other staff will be needed to perform these projects.
In addition to the camp, Facilities Management volunteers also spent the Day of Caring at the Senior Center, cleaning interior and exterior windows and replacing parking lot lights, and at the Lane Babe Ruth Field, aerating and seeding the soil.
Jane DeGeorge
Communications Generalist
Human Resources & Training
UVA Facilities Management
(434)982-5846
jad2tm@virginia.edu
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