About Day of Caring
Every year United Way of the Ozarks organizes the largest one-day, community-wide volunteer event in Southwest Missouri. Teams of volunteers spend a day giving back to area nonprofit agencies and schools. Last year, more than 2,000 volunteers from 126 businesses and organizations completed 296 projects at 76 nonprofit agencies and schools. That’s more than 12,000 hours of service! BRP is happy to say that we have been a part of Day of Caring for more than 15 years!
Volunteering at the Discovery Center
This year, our team volunteered at the Discovery Center in Springfield, MO where there were approximately 80 volunteers in total. Here our group participated by power washing exhibit floor mats, washing the inside of windows, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, dusting, and disinfecting everything in sight.
The Discovery Center being primarily geared toward children, means you have the untidiness that follows (some parents can relate). This kept our team very busy throughout the day making sure everything was in tip top shape. The Discovery Center has three floors of exhibits, which is a lot of surface area to cover, so they were greatly appreciative of all the hard work that the volunteers put in.
About the Discovery Center
If you haven’t heard or been to the Discovery Center then you are simply missing out! The Center is an interactive hands-on museum committed to inspiring people of all ages with a lifelong love of learning and an appreciation of the world and our place in it. It is the perfect space for kids to have fun, get inspired, and gives them the opportunity to have an interactive educational experience that they won’t forget!
The Discovery Center does this by demonstrating science, technology, art, history, and culture through exhibits, programs, and collaborative efforts. The Discovery Center serves as the only primary science education center in the region, housing 50,000 square feet of interactive exhibit space and runs primarily off donations in order to keep its doors open. If you wish to donate to the Discovery Center and its efforts: https://www.discoverycenter.org/community-donations/
Community Impact
United Way’s Day of Caring makes a monumental impact to the community. Not only does it give nonprofits the ability to get things done in a timely manner, it gives them the amount of help that they may never receive in the first place. Things that may have been on their “to do” list but kept getting pushed on the back burner, can get done in a matter of seconds. With the number of volunteers that participate in Day of Caring you can accomplish a lot in a days time. Days like today are what bring our community together to make large impacts for the Springfield community.
Christopher Swan (above), BRP Architect and Managing Partner stated, “Participating in the Day of Caring allows BRP to give back to our community as well as have fun as a group outside of the office environment. I serve as the Managing Partner of BRP Architects and President of the Board of Directors for the Discovery Center of Springfield, so I get to see the positive impact of the event for both organizations and look forward to participating again next year.”
Want to find local volunteer activities in your area? Click here.
Also on the Blog: BRP Welcomes Chelsea Smith to the Team!