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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 my second volunteer activity this year I helped organize and run a week long summer camp for the 12-18 year old girls at my church. These annual camps (called Girls' Camp across the US) have been held for as long as anyone can remember, and are a highlight for the girls who participate in our teen program. This is my third year being involved as a leader, and I of course attended these camps as a teenager myself, though I do have to point out that the girls today have it pretty easy with their cabins, electricity, and a/c compared to our tents, bugs, and pit toilets ;) The camp was held in Ramona at our church-owned camp, Camp Wildwood Ranch. We are so lucky to have such a great facility to hold our camps at - it fits our needs perfectly and there is so much to do!
This camp is actually the culmination of roughly six months of planning between ten local congregations that are also doing work individually - I've been working with my congregation's teens for months to get their release paperwork in order, organizing a fundraiser, managing payments, running activities for the teens to check off outdoor skill certification requirements, making archery targets, helping plan a camp skit, etc. (It's been very busy). I also lent my graphic design skills and helped with the camp's graphic design needs; schedules, reference cards, logos. and diecutting vinyl name decals to identify everyone's water bottles. With 130 campers our hands were certainly full, but all the leaders take their part and help to make the experience a good one for the girls.
The theme of our camp was Survivor: Let Your Light Shine, which was done in the style of the reality TV show with challenges and immunities (though we weren't allowed to vote anyone off the camp) and plenty of spiritual and playtime activities that catered to the theme. I was assigned two major responsibilities - planning and running a camp craft (punched tin can lanterns) and organizing a orienteering activity where we taught the girls to navigate via compass and then had them compete against each other to navigate to a prize hidden in the camp's auditorium. But, the camp organizers don't let anyone sit around too long so I also had responsibilities assisting with team building activities and camp free time (helping campers off the zipline, yelling at rowdy kids in the pool, assorted errands, etc.) plus I was assigned to be a "cabin mom" over one of the eight troops of campers and I helped them with tasks that needed an adult (clogged toilets, scheduling, general info, etc.). I was also directly responsible for one of my congregation's newest campers who is a Type 1 diabetic; making sure her blood sugar was in check, getting her to make adjustments as needed, and checking on her through the night and coordinating with her mom to make sure all was well. My gratitude goes to the brilliant people who invented her Dexcom continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump as they made my job SO much easier. It resulted in little sleep, but it was worth it so that she could safety participate in our camp. I was also the designated "critter removal expert" in the leader cabin and discovered that grown adult women will shreik at cute little frogs when they thwart my attempts to catch and remove them from cabins.
In all, we were busy the whole week but as someone who doesn't mind dirt and bugs this camp is always right up my alley, and I of course thoroughly enjoy helping to make our camp a fun experience for the girls :)
Every year, I try to raise awareness for CF and that is typically accomplished by raising money followed by a walk or a bike ride. Last year it was pretty easy, we walked 3 miles in Mission Beach, CA. The year before I biked 90 miles through North County San Diego. Either way, no matter what, my goal is to help raise awareness as well as money to find a cure and to help other families with CF.
This year we will participate in two walks. One in Mission Beach, CA and the other this weekend, will be held at Liberty Station, CA. For each walk we will raise $7,000 but with a personal goal of $10,000.
I have been trying to raise awareness for CF for almost 20 years now. To find a cure and to help with the CF community is something that is very close my entire family.
For my first volunteer activity this year I chose to volunteer with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk, held in downtown San Diego on May 20th. The aim of the organization is to “[raise] awareness, fund scientific research, and provide resources and aid to those affected by suicide”. I became acquainted with the foundation after losing my older brother to suicide in 2014. The walk is a fundraising effort and operates by inviting teams to raise funds to support the organization as they walk the 17 mile course through the various areas of downtown San Diego during the middle of the night (the walk starts at 7:30pm and the last team made it in around 4am). As I am a better worker bee than fundraiser or cheerleader, I opted to volunteer as “crew” and assisted with the moving parts of the event. My assignment was to the team minding the route marking - a system of directional arrows and signage zip tied to light and signal poles to help the participants find their way. During the event we were to continuously circulate through the course in a van and check the signage per a schematic provided by the organizers; reinstalling or adjusting signage as needed and also adding additional signage where we felt it was warranted. We were also to call any problems in, which we fortunately didn't encounter many of. Our sister van, however, had to reroute part of the course due to a very unfriendly transient. Fortunately, he was the only blip in the event - we heard from the participants that the transients actually were enthusiastically cheering them all on once they heard the purpose of the event.
The route signage was installed early that morning by another crew, however our first task was to run through the back half of the course to verify that the signage was still in place. We found that a fair portion had been pulled down for whatever reason, so myself being the young one in the van ended up being the designated sign installer. Given this was downtown San Diego on a Saturday night this quickly got interesting as there's nowhere to simply pull over. However, we got good at anticipating what was next, readying the sign in the van, having two people run out to install and clip the ends of the zip ties, then dive back into the van (India Street in Little Italy was where this scene was particularly ridiculous). At times we had to grab an armful of supplies and take to the course on foot when it couldn't be driven, then meet up with the van later. On many occasions we were sent to specific areas to fix missing signage or add more, or even go hunting for lost walkers and get them back on track (there was a right turn in Little Italy that despite two signs proved problematic - a bike volunteer was eventually stationed there to direct the walkers). Fortunately one of the members on our team, Sydney, lives in downtown and was an incredible resource for knowing how best to get places or what streets went which way and how to hit them in the correct direction.
Our task got easier through the night as bars and restaurants closed up and the streets quieted down, and we even got to take little breaks at the rest stops here and there. Early in the morning it came time to start pulling signage down, so we retraced many of our steps and removed signs and zip ties, making sure to leave no messes. Eventually we caught up to the last of the walkers and played leapfrog with our sister van behind them as we slowly pulled down signage. Later we were called to come back in, so we returned our van and were able to be on hand at Ruocco Park in Seaport Village to see the last team in.
In signing up for this event I was concerned about the "up all night" aspect as I can't pull all-nighters as well as I did in college, but it ended up being just fine as we were busy and active the whole time. I did take some serious naps the next day, but it was worth it to support such an important cause. In all, there were 200 volunteers staffing various event needs and 900 walkers - all participated in fundraising and this event brought $1.1 million into suicide prevention research and programs for schools and universities.
This walk was the first one held in San Diego, and by all accounts went well so I am hopeful that the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention comes back next year. In my route during the night I saw plenty of other crew assignments that looked interesting so I hope to be able to volunteer again.
On February 12, 2017, I had the opportunity to help out with a multi-church effort to provide meals to some of the members of the homeless community in Downtown San Diego. I assisted with preparation before the event began. We sang songs, prayed, and then began serving. My job was to collect trays as people were leaving. This allowed me the privilege of seeing their happy faces as they finished up their meals and thanked us. Seeing the appreciation that they showed was a very memorable and rewarding experience. Afterwards, I helped with clean up, and we all enjoyed a bit of the food ourselves, including a new experience for me of Pizza Soup. It was an incredible pleasure to be a part of an event that brought much needed food and, more importantly, love to those who need both so much.
My wife and I volunteered to cleanup a park/watershed area up in Temecula, while out our group also had collected a few blankets and bought some coffee to pass out to some of the homeless community that lives in the area we were cleaning up. The creek/river area goes under the freeway and really gets trashed by people who are careless or just don’t care about the animals and as I found out people who call it home. While not something that really hits home it seemed like an opportunity for me to help cleanup from the careless people who commute right alongside me every day. Overall it was an interesting experience, really makes you thankful for what you have and more than that think about how else to help those close to home.
Last month I had the opportunity to participate in a food distribution at the Mid-City Church of the Nazarene. The event involved handing out food (which was donated from local food banks and businesses) to financially-burdened residents of City Heights. Many volunteers showed up to the church on the morning of the distribution, all performing different tasks to help the process run smoothly. I assisted in breaking down empty food boxes and gathering them for recycling, as well as reorganizing any extra food that had not been taken. The distribution finished quickly and seemingly effortlessly – I was impressed with how smoothly everything went and felt proud to have been involved in the process. It felt extremely rewarding to have been a part of a group effort like this one, especially knowing that our efforts would have a positive impact on the community.
On November 5, 2016, my fellow Paperfree engineers and I were able to assist with the food distributions at Mid-City Nazarene Church in City Heights. The church holds food distributions every first Saturday which “gives away items from local food banks and businesses to people-in-need who live in and around City Heights”. I was able to help with breaking-down and throwing away empty boxes as well as organizing empty pallets. It always feels good to help out. Thanks to Ethan Wade for inviting us to volunteer.
I volunteered at a food distribution at the Church of Nazarene in Mid-City. As a volunteer, I was tasked with cleaning up the cardboard boxes and trays that contained the canned foods and collected those that were to be redistributed. There are many people in San Diego that are homeless, elderly and can no longer work, or part of a low-income family. It was great seeing so many good people come together to help those that are less well-off. This was my first time volunteering at the food drive but I will definitely volunteer more in the future to help out those in need.
For my community effort I decided to start with the following question: How can I use my knowledge and expertise to help the community? Throughout the years I have developed many skills, some of which have been outside of work. Although in this case it was a different set of skills that I do not necessarily exercise at PaperFree, it was still under the PaperFree core belief of giving back to the community.
Over the last couple of years I have gotten proficient in the area of videography. Whether it is post production editing, shooting in front of a green screen, or recording my church services, I have found enjoyment in doing that. Funnily enough I have found myself in a few situation at PaperFree where this set of skills has helped. In this case, I was presented with the opportunity to help in a video production for a church. This project would extend pass our local community. It would even expand pass a few different countries. This project was going to be realized in Guatemala.
The idea was to use my videography skills to help direct and implement something complete. To put in an effort that would show in the end result. I did everything from run cables, train the video crew, setup cameras, edit, etc. Traveling to a different country, spending my time, money, energy, and even my own equipment to help those that might not have the same skills and abilities as myself 
are the reasons I felt satisfied with my community work. We spent hours on end for about a week preparing for the event. Rehearsals and trainings with the team was necessary to make sure everything was in proper order. Embedded you will see some images of camera setups I planted. This was a unique idea because we used GoPro’s to capture a distinct view of the instruments used during the recording.
It was a privilege to have been considered to be part of this project. I am very happy that I was able to give back to the community in such a unique way. PaperFree does not limit as to where or what we do, as long as we make our community a better place to be.
Every first Saturday of the month a local church has a major food distribution for people in need. I volunteered as a translator/cleaner to help the food distribution run smoothly. It was an exciting experience that gave me the opportunity to connect with the elderly in my community and give them a helping hand.