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GE volunteers go back to summer camp |
Louisville, KY October 5, 2007 — Who remembers summer camp? Boating, hiking, arts and crafts, swimming lessons, singing around the campfire, horseback riding, and so much more. Countless children experience the joy of camp each year … and thanks to volunteers from GE Consumer & Industrial in Louisville, campers at YMCA Camp Piomingo will enjoy a much-improved facility when they come back next summer!
On Friday, October 5, more than 800 GE volunteers will descend on YMCA Camp Piomingo at Otter Creek Park (1950 Otter Creek Park Rd., Brandenburg, KY, 40108) to complete a full-scale overhaul of the facility. Volunteers will spend from 8 am to 4 pm landscaping, painting, expanding a corral, repairing cabin walls and flooring, cleaning up Otter Creek Park trails, installing energy-efficient lighting and window screens in the cabins, and many, many other activities. Including planning, pre-work and Friday’s total onsite hours, GE volunteers will donate more than 10,000 hours of service for just this one project.
"GE volunteers, with the support of our GE Consumer & Industrial executive leadership, are excited to serve our community by giving the YMCA Camp Piomingo a major facelift. Our efforts will provide several thousand present and future campers with a cleaner and safer environment in which to learn and grow," says Guy Turner, Lead Design Engineer for GE and Camp Piomingo project leader.
At noon in the pavilion, key speakers including Jim Campbell, Chairman and CEO of GE Consumer & Industrial and YMCA of Greater Louisville CEO Steve Tarver, will address the group to commemorate the day’s impressive efforts. This year marks the 18th annual GE Volunteers fall project, reaching a total of more than 120,000 GE volunteer hours for the Kentuckiana community. Other fall project sites have included Maryhurst, Americana Community Center, Clark County 4-H and the New Zion Community Resource Center.
“The YMCA is incredibly honored that GE would select YMCA Camp Piomingo for this project,” said Steve Tarver, CEO of YMCA of Greater Louisville. “The services provided by the GE volunteers will ultimately show up in the lifelong memories that will be created among thousands of young people in the future. Beyond screens for cabins, improved trails, new paint, new bunks, there will be improved confidence, self-reliance, new friends, new skills, and better people as a result of GE’s efforts.”
YMCA Camp Piomingo was established in 1938 and helps to challenge each individual mentally, physically and spiritually. The program serves youth ages 6 to 16 in the local community. The camp sits on 360 wooded acres, which are located in the 2,600 acres of Otter Creek Park, providing multiple opportunities for outdoor adventure. The camp got its name from the Native American word “Piomingo” meaning “big bend in the river”. Otter Creek Park, owned by Louisville Metro Parks, is located approximately 25 miles southwest of downtown Louisville along the Ohio River in Meade County, Kentucky.
“Across GE we encourage employees to volunteer because it enriches the community,” says Campbell. “All of us at GE feel that it’s important to spend our time, talent and resources making the community where we live and work a better place.”
In GE’s more than 50 years in Louisville, the company has donated more than $50 million to local nonprofit -- $4.6 million in 2006 alone. Paying volunteers a full day’s salary to get out and volunteer; GE Consumer & Industrial encourages community service and the more than 2,000 employees who volunteer at over 60 projects every year.
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GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliance, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and "ecomagination," a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram®, Profile™ GE®, Hotpoint®, SmartWater™ Reveal®, Edison™ and Energy Smart™ consumer brands, and Entellisys™ industrial brand. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.
Contact:
Megan Robison, GE Consumer & Industrial
502-452-5322 (office); 502-439-3599 (cell)
megan.robison@ge.com