West Monroe’s National Day of Service: Partnering to better our communities

On June 14th, West Monroe employees from each of our offices dedicated the day to volunteer in our local communities. During the fourth annual National Day of Service, we partnered with 38 outstanding organizations and had the opportunity to empower and be a part of all that they do to benefit the communities in which we work and live. This day presents an opportunity for our people to partner with organizations working to solve our communities’ toughest challenges. Overall, West Monroe partnered with 38 organizations across nine markets, deploying a total of 1,044 volunteers to serve 6,264 total hours. Watch our National Day of Service recap video to see what the day was like, and read on to see the impact that we made with the help of our local organizations!

Chicago

Charity: American Cancer Society
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 15
Mission: To save lives, celebrate lives, and lead the fight for a world without cancer.
Impact: Volunteers set up tables for the survivor dinner at Walter R. Sundling High School.

Charity: Anixter Center
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 14
Mission: Anixter Center focuses on serving people with disabilities, behavioral health needs, and people who are Deaf, Deafblind, or Hard of Hearing through a variety of programs.
Impact: Volunteers prepared for a yard sale including cleaning equipment, toys, and instructional material; and sorting and organizing.

Charity: Audubon Society
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 14
Mission: The National Audubon society protects birds and the places they need throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, and on-the-ground conservation.
Impact: Volunteers built trails, mulched, and repaired important trail ways in Indian Ridge Marsh Park.

Charity: Big Shoulders Fund
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 14
Mission: Provide support to inner-city schools, which provide a quality, values-based education for Chicago’s children.
Impact: Volunteers painted, organized, and cleaned within St. Gall School.

Charity: Breakthrough Urban Ministries
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 10
Mission: Breakthrough partners with those affected by poverty to build connections, develop skills and open doors of opportunity.
Impact: Employees unloaded and sorted five pallets of food.

Charity: Cara Chicago
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 15
Mission: Unlock the power and purpose within our communities and ourselves to achieve real and lasting success.
Impact: Volunteers organized a clothing store.

Charity: Chicago Eco House
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 39
Mission: To use sustainability to alleviate poverty.
Impact: Volunteers urban-gardened in West Garfield Park and in Pilsen. Ten bags of trash were collected, 20 trees were planted, and one new urban gardening lot was constructed.

Charity: CommunityHealth Clinic
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 21
Mission: CommunityHealth delivers comprehensive, high-quality patient-centered health care at no cost to low-income, uninsured adults in need of a medical home through philanthropy, volunteerism, and partnerships.
Impact: 2,800 medical records were reviewed for data entry, shredding, or storage.

Charity: Feed My Starving Children
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 71
Mission: As a Christian non-profit organization, FMSC is called to feed God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit.
Impact: Employees packed 148 boxes with 85,104 meals to be shipped to Tanzania. The meals will feed 234 undernourished children for a year.

Charity: Girls on the Run Chicago
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 22
Mission: We inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experienced-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.
Impact: Volunteers worked at the warehouse to organize merchandise from 5Ks.

Charity: Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and NW Indiana
Number of West Monroe volunteers: 13
Mission: Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.
Impact: Volunteers readied the Friendship Center for upcoming camps, which included painting 540 square feet of walls, clearing 30,000 cubic feet of brush, and chopping 640 pounds of wood.

Charity: Green Star Movement
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 17
Mission: Green Star Movement inspires students and community members through the creation of public art.
Impact: Two murals were completed and grouted, and one bag of trash was collected at Montrose Beach.

Charity: Habitat for Humanity Chicago
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 15
Mission: Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities, and hope.
Impact: Volunteers helped staff at the Habitat ReStore, which included unloading and assembling donations, assisting customers, and providing general store floor help.

Charity: Housing Forward
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 12
Mission: To transition people from housing crisis to housing stability.
Impact: Volunteers helped with technology training.

Charity: Howard Brown
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 16
Mission: To eliminate the disparities in healthcare experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people through research, education, and the provision of services that promote health and wellness.
Impact: Volunteers attended diversity, equity, and inclusion training as well as helped Howard Brown prepare safer-sex packets. Volunteers also helped organize Howard Brown’s clothing re-sale shop, Brown Elephant.

Charity: Lakeview Pantry
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 11
Mission: Eliminate hunger and poverty in our community by providing food to fill the basic need of hungry people; increasing the independence of our clients through self-help initiatives; and raising awareness of hunger and poverty and working towards solutions to eliminate them.
Impact: Volunteers distributed food to clients as well as assisted at the warehouse.

Charity: Lost Boyz, INC
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 5
Mission: To decrease violence, improve the social and emotional conditions, and provide financial opportunities among the youth in Chicago’s South Shore community.
Impact: Volunteers set up for the Beyond the Badge event, a cookout event for the surrounding community.

Charity: Make-A-Wish Illinois
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 30
Mission: Together, we create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.
Impact: Volunteers created birthday cards or cards of encouragement for patients.

Charity: Metropolitan Family Services
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 5
Mission: To provide and mobilize the services needed to strengthen families and communities.
Impact: Volunteers cleaned and organized the North Children’s Center.

Charity: Misericordia
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 20
Mission: To support children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who chose our community by providing the highest quality residential, training, and employment services
Impact: Volunteers baked brownies, and helped at the coffee station, art room, and learning center.

Charity: My Block, My Hood, My City
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 82
Mission: To help teenagers overcome the poverty and isolation they face, boosting their educational attainment and opening them to opportunities that make a difference in their lives.
Impact: Volunteers cleaned up and painted the neighborhood.

Charity: Plarn Project
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 36
Impact: Volunteers upcycled plastic shopping bags and turned them into sleeping mats. Plarn (plastic bag yarn) mats are a crowdsourced project to serve Chicago’s homeless population.

Charity: Ray Graham Association
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 18
Mission: To create opportunities that empower people with disabilities to reach, grow, and achieve.
Impact: Volunteers performed beautification, clean-up, and landscaping.

Charity: Salvation Army
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 127
Mission: To preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination.
Impact: Volunteers helped clean facilities and worked in their community garden.

Charity: USO of Illinois
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 12
Mission: Strengthen America’s military service members by keeping them connected to family, home and country, throughout their service to the nation.
Impact: Volunteers cleaned up the Great Lakes Naval Academy USO building.

Columbus

Charity: Mid-Ohio Habitat for Humanity
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 10
Mission: Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.
Impact: The team finalized the completion of two local Habitat new builds to get ready for when the families move in next month. Overall, 16 rooms were cleaned, vacuumed, and mopped, and paint was touched up. Two stoves and microwaves were installed, and two front porches and two back porches were cleaned and painted.

Dallas

Charity: Dallas Life
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 45
Mission: Dallas LIFE is a place where homeless men, women, and children can receive help and hope during their time of need.
Impact: The volunteers split into two teams; the first team prepared and served lunch to 100+ residents, and the second team packed Father’s Day gift bags, cleaned a computer lab and nursery, and organized storage closets.

Los Angeles

Charity: Los Angeles Regional Food Bank
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 37
Mission: Mobilize resources to fight hunger in the Los Angeles community.
Impact: The West Monroe team assembled food packages that consist of canned fruit, canned vegetables, rice, cereal, and other non-perishable food items. They sorted 16,938 pounds of food at the food bank, which translates into 14,048 meals.

Minneapolis

Charity: Second Harvest Heartland
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 22
Mission: To end hunger through community partnerships.
Impact: The Minneapolis office packed food with Second Harvest Heartland, an affiliate of Feeding America. Volunteers packed 23,865 pounds of food.

Charity: Project for Pride in Living
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 18
Mission: PPL builds the hope, assets, and self-reliance of individuals and families who have lower incomes by providing transformative affordable housing and career readiness services.
Impact: Volunteers beautified the garden spaces around the Adair housing complex in Northwest Minneapolis and bagged 250 pounds of weeds.

New York

Charity: Center for Employment Opportunities
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 69
Mission: Our vision is that anyone with a criminal record who wants to work has the preparation and support needed to find a job and stay connected to the labor force.
Impact: Three different activities took place. In the resume and mock interview workshops, volunteers helped participants prepare for successful entry into the workforce. Volunteers also took over Marcus Garvey Park to clean up a community that is often forgotten, revitalizing a space that's welcoming to children, animals and nature-lovers alike.

Charity: GOOD+
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 32
Mission: Our unique model of pairing essential goods with innovative services creates an upward trajectory for low-income families.
Impact: One group worked on a children's accessories project, helping to sort, bundle, and take inventory of different types of accessories that will go out to 215 little New Yorkers. Another group worked on a children's clothing project, helping to sort and repair garments that will go out to 180 kids throughout the five boroughs.

Pittsburgh

Charity: Storm Harbor Equestrian Center
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 12
Mission: The Storm Harbor Equestrian Center provides Equine Assisted Activities for people of all ages with cognitive, physical, emotional and social disabilities.
Impact: The team assisted at the Storm Harbor Equestrian Center with children and adults with disabilities. Volunteers assisted on six therapeutic horse rides for individuals with special needs, mucked 13 horse stalls, groomed and prepped 10 horses for an upcoming Special Olympics event, weeded 1.4 miles of sensory trail, and filled 15 wheelbarrows with weeds and invasive plants overtaking the trail.

San Francisco

Charity: Buena Vista Park
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 28
Mission: The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s Mission is to provide enriching recreational activities, maintain beautiful parks and preserve the environment for the well-being of everyone in our diverse community.
Impact: The volunteers participated in a variety of park maintenance projects including weeding, planting, mulching, habitat restoration, trash pickup, painting and doing trail work. Specifically, they beautified Buena Vista Park by clearing weeds and other plants from the area to make space for trees that are more native to California to be planted.

Charity: Project Open Hand
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 23
Mission: to improve health outcomes and quality of life by providing nutritious meals to the sick and vulnerable, caring for and educating our community.
Impact: The team volunteered in the Grocery Center and Kitchen sorting, bagging, culling food items, stocking shelves, chopping and dicing whole food and assembling meals. This consisted of peeling and chopping 300 pounds of onions, packing 72 meals, and repacking 1,060 portions in the warehouse.

Seattle

Charity: Low Income Housing Institute
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 34
Mission: LIHI develops, owns and operates housing for the benefit of low-income, homeless and formerly homeless people in Washington State.
Impact: Volunteers worked at the Georgetown Tiny House Village, painting and building porches and hand railings.

Charity: Ronald McDonald House
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 20
Mission: The mission of RMHC is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children and their families.
Impact: The team organized and cleaned the common areas and store room, restocked kitchen supplies, and washed the shuttle van, all to provide a safe, clean environment for the seriously ill children who use the facilities.

Charity: UW Farm at University of Washington Botanic Gardens
Number of West Monroe Volunteers: 40
Mission: The UW Farm mission is to be the campus center for the practice and study of urban agriculture and sustainability.
Impact: The volunteers helped plant different fruits and vegetables, remove invasive weeds, make a series of plant beds, and help to move compost. They completed a new bed for peppers and squash, removed invasive weeds around a specialized growing cage, fertilized tomatoes, dug out and removed thistles, planted a series of sunflowers, and incorporated waste to compost piles.