Thanks to more than 600 GE Lighting
employee volunteers, the number of inner-city youngsters who will next summer
be able to attend Camp Mueller — a 270-acre camp in Peninsula, Ohio — will
more than quadruple.
In a highly-planned-and-prepared one-day blitz, GE employees bussed to the
camp today will disembark with site maps and tools in hand like “community
service commandos” to their pre-determined team assignments. Work assignments,
led by 50 team captains, include everything from painting and staining cabins
— demolishing some, restoring others — to massive rescreening, laying
concrete and brick, building a patio and basketball court, assembling picnic
tables and playground equipment, clearing brush, spreading mulch, installing
gutters and installing new GE lights.
GE volunteers include engineers, marketing and product management pros,
scientists, human resources staff, secretaries, factory workers, and GE
Lighting President and CEO Matt Espe and his staff. The overhaul of the camp
is GE’s Day of Caring community service project in conjunction with the start
of its local United Way Campaign. Joel Hutt, general manager of Marketing
Communications and leader of the mammoth camp renovation who, along with a
core team, has been planning and overseeing details for three months, quipped,
“I think I now know a little about how General Eisenhower felt on D-Day.”
Richard Andrews, executive director for The Phillis Wheatley Association,
the United Way-supported organization that runs Camp Mueller, said, “The scope
of the camp renovation project and the energy of the GE Lighting volunteers is
amazing and a tremendous shot-in-the-arm for our community. The work being
accomplished, today, will put us three years ahead of our plans for the camp.
As a result of the personal involvement of GE, we expect to be able to
quadruple the size of our program in 2001 and offer a summer camp experience
to as many as 500 children a year. We’re grateful to GE Lighting and to all
the businesses, such as The Home Depot, Grainger, ICI Dulux, GE Supply, GE
Appliances, and many more that contributed supplies or assistance in some
way.”
GE Lighting President and CEO Matt Espe said, “While the generosity of our
employees through their pledges for the 2000-2001 campaign is vital to the
financial success of the overall United Way effort in Cleveland…lending a
helping hand, literally, is what makes the GE Lighting approach to community
service involvement a personal experience for us all. We’re happy to be able
to contribute in this manner.”
About Camp Mueller and The Phillis Wheatley Association: Camp Mueller,
operated by The Phillis Wheatley Association, today remains the only African
American-owned camp in Ohio. Since the late 1940s, Cleveland inner-city
youngsters from economically- and socially-disadvantaged backgrounds have
benefited from camping experiences. Primary funding for the camp comes from
program services fees, United Way Services, public and private grants,
contributions, and special events. The Phillis Wheatley Association is a
member of United Way Services, Neighborhood Centers Association (NCA), United
Neighborhood Centers of America (UNCA), and the American Camping Association
(ACA). It was established in 1905 as the “Working Girls Home Association” to
provide inexpensive housing for young African American women new to Cleveland.
About GE Lighting: One of the General Electric Company’s major
businesses, GE Lighting is headquartered in Cleveland. A leader in lamp
technology, manufacturing and marketing in the global lighting industry, GE
Lighting makes and sells more than 6,000 types of lighting products and has
operations in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. For more
information on GE Lighting and GE, visit http://www.GELighting.com and http://www.ge.com .
