[Photo above: left to right: Diane Frate and Lisa Slen of Connecticut]

On Wednesday, December 7th was a festive day for Diane Frate and Lisa Slen as they assisted in bringing to life the Person2Person’s Toy Store. This is their 4th year volunteering for this event. This year a total of 500 volunteers over a 3-day period made this event successful.
Both employees worked sorting and organizing hundreds of books. From there, they placed an assortment of stuffed animals around as decorations and also around the Christmas tree.

Please watch the below link from Darien’s local news about this heartwarming event.
http://connecticut.news12.com/multimedia/hometown-hero-lisa-koorbusch-1.12718740

[By Diane Frate]

[Photo shows Mike with wife, Carla; daughter, Jordan; and son Jackson; volunteering to prepare breakfast]

The Miller family prepares breakfast for the inner city kids in Rochester, New York. Once every 2 months the entire Miller family, have been volunteering for nearly 7 years.

They buy all the ingredients and make breakfast for anywhere from 30-50 inner city kids – many of whom do not get hot breakfasts during the week except on Saturday mornings at this meeting.

Mike’s wife – Carla, his daughter, Jordan, and his son, Jackson, along with Mike, all take part in this wonderful volunteer project as a family both in time and monetary donations.
Congratulations, Mike for involving your entire family to serve your community!
[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

On Thanksgiving Eve, the Zick family packed meals at Feed My Starving Children in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Our hearts are full of gratitude for the abundant blessings in our lives: faith, family and friends! May we never take for granted the richness we enjoy every day with ample food and clean water. God bless the kids and families who will be nourished through these meals, packed with love.

Here are additional photos of Zick family members taking part in packing meals for children:
[Photo below: Owen and Evie, ages 10 and 13]

[Photo below Ryan Zick]

[Photo below of Bennett, age 7]

[By Jennifer Zick]

On November 10th, CVI, San Rafael Elks Lodge and two private donors provided funds to award 10 bicycles to Laurel Dell Elementary School 4th graders at their All-School morning assembly.

Representatives from Corporate Visions – Geoff Kinnaird, Francisco Ramirez, Lynn Zambrano, and Charlotte Kobayashi and San Rafael Elks’ representatives Monica McMillan, Jennifer O’Mara, Chuck Clemons, and Melann Mushet were present to help with the award ceremony. Mary Christiansen represented individual donor, Bob Gordon and Lynn Zambrano represented Gloria Fan; and Francisco Ramirez represented Joe Terry and CVI.

[Photo below: Appreciation to all the donors: Corporate Visions, inc., San Rafael Elks Lodge 1108, private donors- Bob Gordon and Gloria Fan]

Ten students were selected on the basis of their letters stating why they deserved to receive a bicycle, what they plan to do to give back to their community, their attendance, good attitude and leadership activities at the school. The students and parents were stunned, surprised, and pleased at the same time to receive bicycles, helmets and locks.

Principal, Pepe Gonzalez and his staff helped to make this Award Assembly special, joyful, and easy. We hope to continue to work with this school to fund-raise and bring ukuleles to add to their existing all-school hula dancing in the spring of 2017.

[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

Elijah [9], Shiloh [3] and Jeremiah [5] are the first to make their gift offering for 2016 Angel Tree Gift Giving in Reno, Nevada. Adorable!
How about you?
Let’s make it happen everywhere to help make at least one child in your neighborhood happy!
{By Charlotte Kobayashi]

[Group photo of CVI and PG&E team in blue outfit]

On November 3rd, Corporate Visions had the largest team of volunteers packing bags of nutritious meals for Kids Against Hunger.
Twenty CVI volunteers, Matt Jones, Craig Bougas, Christopher Starenko, Jeff Murch, Savannah Kimball, Elena Aranda, Anthony Reta, >Dean Ellingsen, , Eric Esquer, , Christian Stephen, Randi Newbould, Meghan Peddicord, Gloria Fan, Dominic Marquis, Kelly Wong, Terri Yurkovich, Kevin Young, Justin Barry, Mary Rhoades, and Charlotte Kobayashi, volunteered for 2 hours at the Pleasanton Kids Against Hunger facility.

This was 4th team of volunteers for 2016 – this team of 20 packed 6480 bags of meals for a total of 20,000 meals packed in 2016!
Congratulations everyone who took part in 2016! We reached our goal of 20,000 bags of me.

Here are a few photos of CVI volunteers, having a great time making it happen and Leaving a Mark!

[Below left to right: Gloria Fan, Savannah Kimball, Charlotte Kobayashi and Craig Bougas]

[Below- having a super time, to the left is Eric Esquer and right is Anthony Reta]

[Below- Mary Rhoades, Randi Newbould, Eric Esquer, Anthony Reta, Elena Aranda, and Dean Ellingsen]

[Below – left to right Craig Bougas and Jeff Murch]

For more information on Kids Against Hunger: www.KAHBayArea.org

[By Charlotte Kobayashi]

On October 24, 2016, Roxanna Yuen volunteered, once again, at Fu Hong Society, an organization serving people with intellectual disabilities, psychiatric disabilities or those with autism organized a food waste recycling tour. This tour was to raise the awareness of food waste by the public and introduce the application of recycled food waste. We also visited Hong Kong Science and Technology Park to enjoy the view of the sea and to have lunch nearby.

Roxanna was assigned one student who was unable to communicate, but understood simple conversation. After taking care of her for few hours, the relationship between them blossomed. The young gal began to hold Roxanna’s hands- she began to trust Roxanna.

Roxanna was delighted to discover that two students she took care of previously remembered her. One of them came to hug her when she arrived at their center. The instructor told her that this student seldom has this type of reaction; it was because Roxanna took care of her during the previous event — she remembered her. The other student kept mentioning a kind of food and said she wanted to eat again. At first, she wasn’t quite sure what that meant. One of the instructors reminded Roxanna that she had given her that particular kind of food during the previous event. Roxanna was very surprised to know how much they remembered. One will realize how amazing they are if we take time to communicate with them.
[By Roxanna Yuen]

[Photo above- back row left to right: Steve Sorah, Leo Hanna, and John Orsborne. Front row left to right: Helen Atkinson, Zoe Corbett, and Emma McCarthy]

Lavender Pond is a nature reserve in a heavily built up area of South East London. In the local community it provides the opportunity for school children to have the chance to experience nature, learn about habitats and all the animals and creatures that live there, and this is a rare occurrence in an area with such little green space.

Our job as volunteers was to begin building boardwalks to create a safe access route for visitors and create habitats for mini beast (ants, spiders, dragonfly’s etc.).

This is what the boardwalk looked like when we arrived:

We began laying down the sleepers and beams to make it level and secure, which involved pounding down the clay and lots of precise measuring! Then we got to work with securing the boards in place; here it is beginning to take shape:

As we were very hard at work with the boardwalks we didn’t get a chance to begin on the mini beast’s habitat, but we were all very pleased with the results at the end of the day, and very glad that the British weather stayed dry for us!

And,here are the beautiful, hard working ladies of UK!

[By Emma McCarthy]