Community Corner
Safeway Volunteers and Rebuilding Together Join Forces to Repair a Local Home
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, State Senator Loni Hancock and Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner stop by to cheer the volunteers on.
Last Saturday, Safeway employees donated elbow grease to a Rebuilding Together project in West Berkeley. About 60 employees from Safeway’s corporate offices and Bay Area helped paint, clean and clear debris, all on their own time.
, a non-profit with offices in Berkeley, had identified the house of Dale Hemenway and Barbara Ellsworth for one of its projects. “I think the owners are going to get more than they expected,” said John Stevens, executive director of Rebuilding Together East Bay-North.
“I’m here to give back,” said Paul Randall, who works in the Grand Avenue store in San Leandro. “I love volunteer work because I think I’ve been really blessed.”
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“Volunteerism is a big deal at Safeway,” said Brian Dowling, vice president of public affairs at Safeway, a publicly traded company with headquarters in Pleasanton. “We make opportunities available to our employees, and, boy, they take them.”
Around noon, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, state Sen. Loni Hancock and state Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner stopped by to cheer on the volunteers. Skinner proclaimed April 30, 2011, “National Rebuilding Day” and presented a framed declaration to Stevens.
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Hancock recalled the first time she attended a similar event, when she was mayor of Berkeley. “I’m just so grateful to the fact that we have Rebuilding Together still here, thriving, and that we have Safeway with local branches investing their employees’ energy and enthusiasm in the community,” she said.
Earlier in the month, Stevens said, other volunteers had helped to replace carpeting, upgrade bathroom fixtures, install insulated exterior doors, scrape paint and trim an overgrown tree. Donations also came from Eric F. Anderson construction company's workers, Clif Bar, and the city of Berkeley city manager's office, which donated the use of a dumpster to the project.
“It’s great to see us all working on the same goal and helping each other,” said Larree Renda, executive vice president of Safeway. “Here, there are no boundaries or chain of command.”
