San Francisco, CA, May 23, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This year buildOn’s dinner celebrated solidarity, service and the Bay Area youth. This inspiring evening united over 300 corporate executives, young professionals and community leaders to recognize the work of buildOn’s incredible youth here in the Bay Area, their dedication to community, and the work buildOn does globally. The dinner took place at The Warfield Theatre on Friday, May 19th and raised over $420,000.
Rodan + Fields Prescription for Change® (PFC) was celebrated and honored for their unparalleled commitment to buildOn and through buildOn’s 36 Hours Immersion experience. Since 2014, the PFC Foundation has funded 534,187 student program days in the cities where buildOn works and has contributed over $3.1M in charitable gifts to date.
This spring, the PFC and their consultants simultaneously participated in buildOn’s 36 Hours experience across the US and in Oakland, where they ‘walked in the shoes’ of buildOn students as they explored the challenges facing their schools and communities. During this fully immersive two-day experience, each participant was paired with a buildOn student ambassador who shared their own unique perspective on their school, their community and their service with buildOn.
Rodan + Fields Chairman, Amnon Rodan, spoke about buildOn and the PFC’s partnership at the event.
“A big part of what we do at Rodan + Fields is create life-changing opportunities. That’s why partnering with buildOn made perfect sense,” Amnon says. “We both believe in the power that one empowered life can have on the world we live in. By bringing together our Consultants and the buildOn students, to complete side-by-side service, everyone learns empathy through engagement for our communities and ourselves.”
buildOn additionally honored Classy (www.classy.org), a leading online and mobile fundraising platform for nonprofits and social enterprises, with buildOn’s Global Impact Award. In the fall of 2016, Classy employees committed to raising $30,000 to build a school in Nepal. After four months of fundraising on the Classy platform, the Classy team raised over $122,000. Because Classy more than tripled their fundraising goal, the funds not only supported a school build in Nepal, but they were also used to provide an Adult Literacy program for the community and build additional schools in Burkina Faso and Malawi.
“It’s an honor to receive this award from our great partners at buildOn,” said Scot Chisholm, Classy CEO and Co-Founder. “It was a full-circle and impactful experience for the Classy team to witness the power of the platform first-hand, then see those fundraising dollars immediately put into action when some of us traveled to Nepal to help build the school."
GE Digital was recognized for their work with buildOn’s Partnership Program this past April; GE Digital completed buildOn’s Partnership Program, which is a unique program that allows companies to partner with buildOn students to share skills, offer mentorship and serve their communities in solidarity. Over the course of six months, GE Digital and Oakland High students came together in sessions aimed at helping students gain critical tools for their future while addressing the needs of the Oakland community.
This spring, Sidley Austin LLP, GE Digital, Jones Day, PwC, and Mckinsey & Co signed on to participate in Partnership Programs across schools in the Bay Area for the 2017-2018 school year.
Larry Abramson, a Principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) specializing in technology enabled business transformation, has officially joined the buildOn West Coast Board and committed PwC as a new sponsor of the Bay Area Partnership Program. buildOn is thrilled to have Larry as an active board member to provide insight and expertise into our mission.
For more information about next year’s dinner, please email Catherine Althaus at catherine.althaus@buildon.org. For press inquiries, please contact Alex Smith at alex.smith@buildon.org.
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ABOUT buildOn: At home or abroad, buildOn's goal is to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations through service and education. Across the U.S., buildOn empowers urban youth to transform their neighborhoods through intensive community service and to change the world by building schools in some of the economically poorest countries in the world. Since 1991, buildOn has constructed over 1,100 schools worldwide, with more than 142,000 children, parents and grandparents attending these schools every day. For more information, visit www.buildon.org. buildOn has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator.
CONTACT: Alex Smith buildOn alex.smith@buildon.org