There was a sea of bright green shirts in the West Fresno Neighborhood on Earth Day 2014!

Each year, Cargill invites their employees to spend the morning serving the neighborhood. Habitat for Humanity and Darling Industries also participated in the day as well as students from ACEL, Orange Center Elementary and Fresno State.

Teams worked on a playground project at Orange Center.  At Mary Ella Brown Community Center you could see one team fixing the planter boxes while others raked leaves and cleaned up around the playground. The biggest projects were at West Fresno Elementary, where volunteers planted and cleaned throughout the campus. Parents from the school also helped run a Saturday Sports program for the kids.

At the end of the morning Cargill served lunch to everyone. It was a great day!

Earth Day is just one day of the year, but this was more than just a day of service. This was an opportunity for businesses in this neighborhood to get acquainted with other parts of “their” neighborhood. Some folks made an investment in a school they may not have been aware of before. The parents who helped run the Saturday Sports Program had so much fun, the want to do it again.

This is why we do what we do! ENP helps coordinate the day, bringing people together with opportunities and tools so they can make a personal investment in their neighborhood. We love to see businesses come alongside the churches who are partnering with one of our neighborhoods.  Sometimes, like West Fresno, it’s the businesses who take lead in that partnership. Either way, we are working together and have the ability to make our city a better place to live. Not because we spend one day a year serving, but because we see the importance of investing in our neighborhoods throughout the year.

If your business or organization is interested in doing something in your neighborhood, we would love to connect with you. Check out the ways you can “GET INVOLVED”