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PaperFree believes in community and giving back. Twice a year our employees volunteer their time at a local charity, foundation, or organization of their choosing. By doing this, we assist these organizations in furthering their causes, help those who are disadvantaged, and make our community a better place to be.
Below are reflections from our employees on their volunteering experiences.
For the fifth straight year in a row, the PaperFree staff based out of San Diego has chosen to take on the wonderful task of donating to the families that are currently housed at the Ronald McDonald House in San Diego. This unique and amazing charity focuses on providing care to families that are enduring the hardships associated with caring for a child overcoming illness. Learn more at https://rmhcsd.org/
As a result of continued precautions due to the pandemic, PaperFree was not able to actually purchase and donate gifts directly as has been done in the past. Instead, PaperFree made a direct financial contribution in an effort to show their continued support of such a great organization.
"We are blessed to be able to contribute to such a great organization that provides relief and joy to struggling families during the holiday season and throughout the year. All of us at PaperFree take our role in the communities we serve very seriously and cherish any opportunity to give back", said Nicole Hansell.
Feel free to visit the charity's website - they always welcome new visitors and volunteers who are interested in making such an impact in the lives of families in need.
For the third straight year in a row, the PaperFree staff based out of San Diego has chosen to take on the wonderful task of purchasing gifts for several families that are currently housed at the Ronald McDonald House in San Diego. This unique and amazing charity focuses on providing care to families that are enduring the hardships associated with caring for a child overcoming illness. Learn more at https://rmhcsd.org/
The PaperFree staff spent evenings and weekends leading up to the holidays purchasing gifts for the children as well as for the parents. These gifts ranged from clothing, toys, games, and everyday items. Once all the gifts were purchased, the team worked diligently - carefully wrapping each and every gift before loading them up in the back of a truck to be delivered to the charity.
"It is such an incredible blessing to be able to provide even just a little bit of comfort and joy to these amazing families in their time of need. All of us at PaperFree take our role in the communities we serve very seriously and cherish any opportunity to give back", said Nicole Hansell.
Feel free to visit the charity's website - they always welcome new visitors and volunteers who are interested in making such an impact in the lives of families in need.
Carlsbad High School has a program that helps their students develop skills through workshops and internship experience. The program is called the Academy Program. As part of that program, students are required to participate in mock interviews that are meant to represent real-world job interviews. These interviews give the students practice and interviewing skills. This academic year, PaperFree Corporation was happy to be a sponsor and participant of those interviews. Providing feedback and advise to the students during those interviews shows one of the many ways PaperFree is able to use its expertise and skills. Below is feedback received from some of the students and teachers.
“Thank you so much for reaching out and joining us this year for our mock interviews. This was a great learning experience for our students.”
– L. Papera, Program Coordinator
“Thank you for the great opportunity with the mock interview. It was great getting to know my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to interviewing.”
– C. Opp, Student
“I am writing to thank you for your time spent interviewing me for the Internship Academy and giving me valuable feedback that I can utilize in my future interviews. It was greatly appreciated.”
– S. Edelman, Student
Recently, I had the opportunity to use my graphic design skills to help my nephew's elementary school with marketing efforts for an event that they are organizing. They are organizing their first ever Latin Festival, which will feature Latin foods, crafts, music, and dancing, and they needed informational flyers with a bit more polish than they are able to do on their own. I volunteered my graphic design skills to the PTA way back in August and they finally found a project for me :)
With their provided information I created flyers in English and Spanish, with a Latin-inspired design, and revised them several times until they were perfect (there were many people - and opinions - involved in the approvals process, lol). These flyers will go home with students and also be distributed in the community. Once finalized, I also created social media friendly versions for distribution on the school's Facebook and Twitter accounts. The PTA and school officials organizing the event were thrilled with the result and we hope that this event is a success!
The outcome also put me solidly on their graphic design radar and I've also completed some other small professional-level flyers for the PTA since creating the Latin Festival flyer for them.
Volunteered to help wipe old donated machines to be used in classrooms in LA and Riverside for hardware classes. As part of this, we also allowed members of the congregation to bring in their machines and we did backups/virus scans and all kinds of basic IT support stuff.
Joined a group from a friend’s church in downtown to pass out blankets and sandwiches to the homeless population. This was the first-time volunteering with this particular church and it was a little unorganized, but it is always humbling to get to talk with some of the people who truly are thankful for any amount given.
For my second volunteer activity this year I participated in my church group's preparation of hygiene kits to be distributed to the homeless in downtown San Diego. After organizing all of the donations from ourselves and other church members we each grabbed a gallon-sized zip bag and filled them with items one by one. In the end, we created about sixty kits, some geared towards men, others for women, and some were generic in nature. In all, we provided the homeless with toothbrushes, toothpaste, new socks, combs, hand sanitizer, wipes, soap, basic first aid supplies, and more. Another group distributed the kits a week later. We were grateful to be able to help the health and wellbeing of the homeless with our kits!
During the summer break, we wanted to do something for the kids of the church and community to keep them away from the usual routine of tv, video games, computers, etc. What we decided to do was offer free music lessons for those who wanted to join. The idea was not to focus on creating musical stars (as most of these kids where ages 5-10), but rather to keep them entertained, focused, and busy during their summer break. Rather than having them spent hours watching tv, playing video games, etc. we had them come in three times a week to practice singing or playing a musical instrument of their choice. Over these two months we saw them strive to learn as much as they could. Because of that, we feel that continuing this effort will be beneficial for them.
Last weekend, I helped to assemble survival bags to be passed out to members of the homeless community. These bags contain food items like nuts and apple sauce as well as toiletries like toothpaste and wet wipes. I started off on the assembly line putting toothbrushes into the bags, and then moved over to help seal and organize the completed bags. By the end, there were over 200 bags ready to be handed out to anyone who needs them.
Last year I took a part in two volunteering events that help families in need. The first event was with Feeding San Diego. Feeding San Diego is an organization that focuses on fighting hunger in the city of San Diego. They do this by accepting food donations and distributing them to families in need. For the event, local grocery stores donated a huge amount of fruits and vegetables. Our task was to separate the rotten fruits and vegetables so the good ones could be donated to local families in need. The second event was with Harvest CROPS. Fruit tree owners work with Harvest CROPS to donate extra fruits to low income families. I went to one of the fruit tree owner's home to help pick oranges from the dozens of trees to donate. These tasks were fun, challenging, and well worth it knowing that it helped people in need.