Construction for Change, Hermanson Company, Lease Crutcher Lewis (Lewis), and World Relief Seattle recently held a volunteer day on Thursday, October 26, to built a community garden in Kent.
World Relief Seattle needed help. This non-profit provides support to immigrants and refugees, and wanted to build a garden to provide food (including food not easily available locally) as well as climate-specific horticulture education. A plot was available at the new Hillside Paradise Community Parking Plots garden in Kent. What was needed was construction expertise and workers.
This is where Construction for Change, Lewis, and Hermanson Company stepped in. Construction for Change is a non-profit that partners with community organizations on infrastructure projects, recruits professional volunteers, and manages the work. The organization led the project from start to finish. Lewis and Hermanson provided the volunteers to perform the work. The project needed approximately 20 volunteers, so 22 participated, half from each firm.
The Lewis project engineer group was looking for a worthy cause for a volunteer day. Construction for Change was an ideal fit. The organization was well known among the company’s project engineers, with one having recently served as a Change Fellow for a year in Uganda and another currently serving in Togo.
Employees from Hermanson’s Critical Environments Group (CEG) and High-rise Hospitality and Office (H2O) group joined the team.
The event was a great success. The team built six raised ADA-accessible planter beds and three CMU composting areas.
“We are incredibly grateful for the volunteer and material contributions provided by Lewis and Hermanson to build out the ADA garden beds and composting areas,” said Tim Hickory of Construction for Change. “They had the technical volunteer expertise that we needed for this specific scope and the end result was stunning!”
Materials and tools were provided pro bono by Pacific Construction Supply, Hermanson, and Lewis.
“The garden is going to improve a lot of people’s lives,” said Lewis project engineer and organizer Evanne Webster. “It was a great day for a great cause.”
