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Rebuilding Day 2010 Recap:
"This whole experience was tremendous and our facilities staff learned a great deal about...volunteer driven projects. The residents are grateful and the newly painted halls truly make a difference." - Facilities manager
This past April, over 1,400 volunteers provided free repairs and renovations to 10 homeowners, 18 nonprofits, schools or community centers and even installed our first public mural - what an amazing accomplishment! Now in our 21st year of service, the staff and board never cease to be amazed by the all the hard work and commitment from our volunteers, sponsors, vendors, partners and community members for National Rebuilding Day.
"I can't thank you enough for all you have done! We are truly blessed to have you all in our lives and helping to finish our home...I've been hanging out in the backyard and enjoying the wonderful transformation, your team of volunteers and you all have done." - Portola homeowner
As usual, all of our projects varied greatly from volunteer size to skill level, and the final scopes of work are always finalized by the Captains and what their team can successfully accomplish. But just to give you an idea of how broad our project scopes of work range, some of the work done included:
- crumbling back deck rebuilt
- multiple fences built
- homeowners yards cleared out and planted or mulched
- all projects got a fresh coat of paint
- planter box benches built for a school
- room renovated into functioning kitchen for nonprofit
- multiple murals painted in schools
- rebuilt front stairs for homeowner
- new cabinets installed
- recycled flooring installed on multiple projects
- installed a water catchment system
- computers donated and installed for school library
And that's just to name a few things! With 29 projects, each scope of work was specific to what the homeowner or facility partner wanted and all of them were thrilled with the work completed. And we were equally thrilled that this year had the least amount of loose ends than previous years - Hooray!!
A big big thank you to all our volunteers, Captains, board members, partners, and vendors for another fantastic and successful Rebuilding Day - we are so appreciative of your dedication and commitment to our work in the community. Have a well-deserved rest this summer and we hope to see you all next April!
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Rebuilding Day Highlights
- 10 Homes repaired
- 18 facilities renovated, including: 9 facilities that were either schools or specifically serve youth; 2 community centers, serving a broad range of population; 4 facilities that had a greening element
- 1 public mural - the Excelsior Portal
- 29,520 lbs of waste removed, recycled or mulched
- 3 projects used re-purposed donated cabinetry
- 4 projects reused donated appliances
- 8 projects re-used lumber and 9 sites are using other recycled materials
- 13 projects sourced materials from our warehouse
- Lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council was used on 2 projects
- Native plants for landscaping were planted on 4 project sites
- Paints with low or no VOC's (volatile organic compounds) on nearly all of our projects
- 700 volunteers signed on-line safety waivers to cut down paper use
- As always, we partner with Recology to facilitate recycling and green waste composting on all 29 project sites
- This year, we encouraged all volunteers to carpool and bring reusable water bottles in place of bottled water
 And we need to acknowledge the astounding support provided each year by Recology in helping us ensure that all the compost, recyclables, bulky items and trash volunteers pull out, ends up where it needs to be. They are amazing partners and are a huge part of what makes each Rebuilding Day such a success.
Thank you Recology!
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Neighborhood Focus:
Excelsior District This Rebuilding Day kicked off our first year of having a neighborhood focus - our intention being that we wanted to partner with community groups to create more lasting changes. Our decision to work in the Excelsior District came after contacting many neighborhood associations, community leaders and nonprofits as well as sitting through dozens of neighborhood meetings and we were thrilled to find an enthusiastic and highly experienced partner with the Excelsior Action Group (EAG) team. EAG
Originally started by neighbors in 2002 to address issues of blight, economic inequality and disinvestment, EAG's mission is to engage residents, merchants, neighbors and city agencies to beautify, reinvigorate and unify the Exclesior community. For the tiny 3 staff and volunteer driven organization, EAG is doing some truly amazing things in their neighborhood, including art walks, comprehensive small business assistance, community cleanups, public art projects, graffiti abatement and Excelsior brand marketing campaign, just to name a few. Results
Needless to say, we were thrilled to have them as our partners for this year's pilot program, Changing Neighborhoods, Changing Lives! Our goal in coming into a neighborhood was to support and help implement projects that were either already in the works or needed the sort of strengths that RTSF has - volunteers, project management and leveraging resources. Working with EAG, we were able to work on 7 Rebuilding Day renovation projects within the Excelsior District (with 3 more along the periphery), and we also implemented an amazing public mural along Mission Street (above 280 before Silver Ave.) that acts as an Excelsior Gateway and co-hosted an Excelsior Resource Fair for merchants and community members.
Next Year...
Glowing after another year of great Rebuilding Day projects, exciting new partnerships and a new direction that is blossoming, we are once again heading out to find our Rebuilding Day 2011 focus neighborhood. We've appreciated all the hard work and support from EAG and look forward to creating new partnerships while continuing to support the work started within the Excelsior District. Stay tuned - we hope to have our next neighborhood focus by Fall!
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Upcoming Scavenger Crawl to Benefit Rebuilding Together San Francisco!
On Sunday, June 6th we will be partnering with the new local nonprofit Scavenger Crawl for an exciting hunt through San Francisco. A Scavenger Crawl is a mash-up of scavenger hunt, fun run, pub crawl, San Francisco trivia challenge and a costume parade all in one!
Teams will be given a list of clues at the starting point and the first to complete their selected checkpoints, and cross the finish line, will be the winner.
The cost is $20 per person, the winning team will be awarded a grand prize, and the nonprofit partner that brings out the most registered participants will win all of the event proceeds. The race begins (and ends) at the Presidio Sports Basement on June 6th from 2pm-5pm and for more information or to register, please check out Scavenger Crawl's website.
So, grab some friends and family and spend a Sunday afternoon cracking clues and discovering new San Francisco spots while supporting our work!
For more information about this event, please contact Valerie at (415) 905-1611 ext. 205 or Valerie@RebuildingTogetherSF.org
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Rebuilding Together Announces the "Make it Last" fund
Help us raise $10,000 by June 30th!
Each year after Rebuilding Day, we receive calls from homeowners like Ms. Sherman requesting help with additional repairs. It might be a broken door, or grab bars in the bathroom, or a leaky faucet. Sometimes it's just more handy work that wasn't apparent before Rebuilding Day. We'd like to be able to respond to these additional repairs after April as a way of continuing the work started on Rebuilding Day. That's why we're launching a "Make it Last" fund this year, in honor of the homeowners and nonprofit organizations our volunteers worked with this past April. Our goal is to raise $10,000 by June 30th so that we can continue to provide repairs and safety modifications for our Rebuilding Day clients year round.
Many of you have already given time, materials and financial support, and for that we are very grateful. But we'd like to ask you to make one more gesture of support by contributing to the "Make it Last" fund. You can donate online, or via a check payable to "Rebuilding Together San Francisco". If even half of the 1,200 volunteers who participated in Rebuilding Day contribute just $25 each, we will actually exceed our goal for the fund. And later this year, when a homeowner like Ms. Williams (below) calls for additional assistance, we answer that call with a "Yes, we'll be right over!"
PS...Your company may offer a matching grant for your gift, doubling your contribution! Check in with your Human Resources or Community Affairs department for matching gift info. |
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A BIG Thank You to Our 2010 Rebuilding Day Sponsors!
Adobe
Advent Software
Alliance Residential Company
AMB Property Corporation
Bank of the West
Bay Area Young Architects The Belden Club
Blackrock
Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. Draeger Construction, Inc.
Ernst & Young, LLP Farella Braun & Martel Federal Home Loan Bank
Employees of
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Grosvenor
Hines
Howard, Rice, Nemerovski,
Canady, Falk & Rabkin
Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts
KPMG
Lick-Wilmerding High School Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP Moody's Analytics
Morrison & Foerster Foundation
On Lok Inc.
Parkmerced PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP Sacred Heart Cathedral
Preparatory Salesforce.com Foundation
Sephora USA Inc.
Splash San Francisco
St. Ignatius Church St. James Episcopal Church
St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal
Church
Structural Engineers' Association
of Northern CA
TowersWatson Urban Land Institute
Williams Lea |
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Cole Hardware is our community partner, so don't forget us when shopping there! Please mention Rebuilding Together San Francisco when checking out at the register - Cole Hardware will issue us a gift card equal to 10% of all purchases credited to our account at the end of the year, which we use to directly support our projects!
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New & Exciting Things at Pier 28!
There are a couple of exciting updates here at RTSF.
First of all, be sure to save the date for our Changing Neighborhoods, Changing Lives party on September 23rd 6-9pm at SOMArts. More info to come!
Also, this year we had some new sponsors - Towers Watson, KKR, Advent Software and Alliance Residential. Thank you so much for your sponsorship and hope to see you next April!
And finally, our Board President Jennifer Glover has stepped down and moved to Southern California - thank you for your 5 years of leadership, support and vision! Best of luck on your new endeavors! Susie Albrecht is currently serving as Board President. |
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Wonder what we're up to year round?
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 Donate to Rebuilding Together San Francisco
Make a one time donation. Every dollar you contribute to Rebuilding Together San Francisco returns $4 worth of free repairs and renovations.
Become a monthly donor.
$10, $20 or any other relatively small amount per month goes a long way to supporting the work of RTSF. You can set up an automatic recurring donation to RTSF through our credit card processing service.
Leverage your donation with a matching gift from your company. Many companies match their employees' charitable donations. We welcome and greatly appreciate these additional contributions. Check with your company's human resources department to find out more.
Donate Stock to RTSF.
Contact Karen Nemsick for more information at 415.905.1611 or Karen@RebuildingTogetherSF.org. |
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