Road Trip: Day 4
After four days of excitement and build up to the 9Cares Colorado Shares Summer drive, 9News Anchor Gregg Moss decided to tone it down a bit.
While the community should get excited about helping out others, there is the stark reality of empty food bank shelves in the metro area, putting added pressure on families in need of help.
At the Denver Inner City Parish, located near 12th avenue and Mariposa Street, the shelves are nearly empty. Elva Chavez, a volunteer at the food bank, said anything and everything they receive from the 9cares Colorado shares food drive goes a long way to help families.
"We usually have 200 people that come and use this resource," Chavez said. "But there's no food."
Denver Inn City Paris is one of the 125 food banks that will benefit from the food drive.
Road Trip: Day 3
Gregg Moss started out the third day of the 9Cares Road Trip with pancakes and sausage at Comcast, who are doing their part to help people in need.
There are about 800 employees at the Comcast Gregg visited and over 6,000 across the state. Many of them were armed with spatulas and chef hats, making breakfast and having fun as a way to get people excited about the 9Cares Colorado Shares Summer Drive.
Employees at Comcast say they love to get involved with the community.
"We feel that part of our responsibility as a corporate citizen is to give back, making sure our employees understand how important it is to serve the communities in which we operate," Cindy Parsons with Comcast said.
Many times, it's the employees that come up with ideas.
"We have employees here that are committed to serving our customers and that commitment to service extents to our communities," Charlon McIntosh with Comcast said. "They are very enthusiastic about bringing in clothing and food to help serve the community."
Gregg's next stop brought him across town to CH2mHill, an engineering firm in Englewood.
There are about 1,400 employees at CH2mHill and they brought in many items.
"We have had close to 4,000 items donated," Julie Arnold, with CH2mHill said.
Arnold says the company likes to stay involved in the community.
"We have an employee moral committee, that when we plan events, we try to plan some kind of community service," Arnold said.
The items that these companies, and anyone else donates, will help support programs through nonprofit organizations like Goodwill and Volunteers of America.
"We do the Meals on Wheels for homebound elderly; we have several shelters for homeless individuals, a shelter for battered women and their children and then we give out emergency food at our mission, which is the place where we use the 9Cares food, both in the summer and the fall," Jim White, with Volunteers of America, said.
At Goodwill, funding supports programs like employment for at risk youth, people with disabilities and struggling adults.
Road trip: Day 2
Decked out in chaps, a dress and even a chicken costume, Gregg Moss made his way to Goodwill, 9NEWS' partner and one of the stops in the 9Cares Road Trip.
Goodwill will be collecting clothing donations during the 9Cares Colorado Shares Drive on Saturday. Any clothing donations will be accepted. Some items that they are in need of are gently used professional clothing, and women's clothing.
"We take the gently used clothing and the donations from that drive and bring it into our stores and sell it, and then convert [the profit] to programs where we help thousands of kids and adults every year in the metro area and front range," Jesse Wolff, with Goodwill, said.
Wolff encourages people to get involved.
"It's really a great venue for people to repurpose what they have laying around the house and convert it to something good, something valuable in the community, and it's just tremendous," Wolff said.
Gregg's next stop was at Raytheon, also located in Aurora. Employees at Raytheon are mostly engineers that specialize in software development.
The company says they love to get involved with community projects.
"Raytheon is the largest employer in Aurora. Raytheon does try to be good stewards and we try to do our part not just through this event, but other events throughout the year. It's real important to us," Kim Bentley with Raytheon said.
The 2,500 employees at Raytheon were challenged to donate two items each and they reached it by bringing 5,000 items. As a "reward," the senior leadership at Raytheon will be dunked in a tank on Friday. All the cash donations from the dunk will go to the 9Cares Colorado Shares Dive.
Jose Ruiz, with Raytheon believes that participating in the 9Cares Colorado Shares Drive is a great way to give back, even if he is one of the lucky employees to get dunked on Friday.
"This is an excellent opportunity to not only be part of the community, because we are, but also to give," Ruiz said.
Road trip: Day 1
Gregg kicked off the road trip at TIAA-CREF in downtown Denver.
TIAA-CREF is a financial services organization that specializes in managing retirement funds for the academic, medical, cultural and government sectors.
Ray Bellucci of TIAA-CREF challenged employees to bring in at least one item. They collected almost 200 boxes and bags of food and clothes.
"TIAA-CREF loves to give back to the community," Bellucci said. "Our employees are the best when it comes to it. They met the need every day, it was wonderful."
Gregg also visited 1stBank on West Colfax Avenue.
"As a bank headquartered in Colorado, it's really important for us to be involved in the community, and no better way than to get our employees involved with [9Cares Colorado Shares]," Dave Baker of 1stBank said.
Food banks are in need during the summer.
"Schools are out of session. So a lot of those kids, low income kids that are used to school lunch programs, don't have those during the summertime. So food banks see a lot of increased activity," John Fitzsimmons of Food Works said.
What and how to donate
9Cares Colorado Shares collects non-perishable food, toiletries, checks and cash.
Food banks prefer high protein food donations. This could include peanut butter, tuna, beans and soups and stews. They also like macaroni and cheese, hot cereal, canned fruits and vegetables baby formula with iron.
Toiletry items like diapers, shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes are also needed.
Clothing donations will go to Goodwill. They accept all clothing.
Donations support over 125 food banks in the metro area and along the Front Range.
There are 21 sites where donations can be dropped off. For a complete list visit: http://www.9news.com/news/article/187361/11/9Cares-Colorado-Shares-Summer-Drive-
Last year, the 9Cares Colorado Shares Summer Drive collected about 81,500 pounds of food, about $13,000 in cash donations.
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