Anheuser-Busch Donates Money, Sweat and Tears to Local Habitat for Humanity
Jacksonville Brewery Gives $65,000 to HabiJax for Sponsorship of a Home – Brewery Employees Provide Volunteer Labor
May 14, 2007
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (May 14, 2007) – While providing financial support to community groups is important, there is a group of Anheuser-Busch employees and retirees from the Jacksonville brewery who prefer to swing hammers, drive nails and slap on paint. This will be the eighth home this group and their families have built since 1999 for HabiJax, the local Habitat For Humanity chapter, donating in total an average of 325 hours annually of volunteer labor in the process.
The tradition will continue this spring. On behalf of the Anheuser-Busch Jacksonville brewery, plant manager Syl Robinson recently presented $65,000 to HabiJax. The donation will fund the materials and construction costs of a home for yet another Jacksonville family that current and retired brewery workers will build.
“The success of HabiJax is in large part due to the continual generosity of our corporate sponsors like Anheuser-Busch. This is a great example of the public sector and private sectors working together to help more and more low-income families open the door to homeownership,” said Mary Kay O'Rourke, HabiJax president. “We are creating communities one home at a time and we are grateful for the support of our corporate sponsors who help us continue our mission of eliminating poverty and substandard housing in Duval County.”
Jacksonville brewery employee volunteers will meet for six consecutive Saturdays this spring as part of their commitment to HabiJax. They will be greeted by a cold slab of concrete on that first day, but working under the supervision of licensed contractors, the volunteers will erect exterior and interior walls; secure roof trusses; install doors and windows; hang and paint siding; paint and landscape.
After six weeks, they will gaze proudly at a completed three-bedroom house. In the words of one Anheuser-Busch volunteer, “It is the closest any of us will come to an old-fashioned barn raising!”
“Our employees realize that they have been blessed with good jobs and they look for ways to give something back to their community, either through the United Way or HabiJax, or through some other worthwhile organization,” said Robinson. “We have all generously given money to charities, but this takes that commitment to a higher, hands-on level.”
And the giving does not stop there, as the brewery employees have collected furniture from family and friends and have purchased home interior gifts for the recipient families.
Anheuser-Busch’s Nutri-Turf operation in Jacksonville has also provided a finishing touch by donating sod to landscape the home. In fact, since 2000, Nutri-Turf has given an estimated 550,000 square feet of sod to landscape more than 100 HabiJax homes.
“We are fortunate to have many caring people at this brewery who have a sense of community,” said Gary McKinney, assistant plant manager, who oversees the project. “Through the donation of money and time to HabiJax, we not only build a home, but we contribute to the creation of a more close-knit, viable community as well as a sense of pride among residents and ultimately, a better Jacksonville.”
HabiJax was founded in 1988 and is the local affiliate for Habitat for Humanity International. Determined to provide Jacksonville’s low income working families with safe, decent housing, HabiJax challenges individuals, families, businesses, foundations and the faith community to work together, creating partnerships that include every segment of the community. HabiJax builds more than 100 homes per year and has constructed nearly 1,500 houses since 1989.
Jacksonville Brewery Gives $65,000 to HabiJax for Sponsorship of a Home – Brewery Employees Provide Volunteer Labor
May 14, 2007
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (May 14, 2007) – While providing financial support to community groups is important, there is a group of Anheuser-Busch employees and retirees from the Jacksonville brewery who prefer to swing hammers, drive nails and slap on paint. This will be the eighth home this group and their families have built since 1999 for HabiJax, the local Habitat For Humanity chapter, donating in total an average of 325 hours annually of volunteer labor in the process.
The tradition will continue this spring. On behalf of the Anheuser-Busch Jacksonville brewery, plant manager Syl Robinson recently presented $65,000 to HabiJax. The donation will fund the materials and construction costs of a home for yet another Jacksonville family that current and retired brewery workers will build.
“The success of HabiJax is in large part due to the continual generosity of our corporate sponsors like Anheuser-Busch. This is a great example of the public sector and private sectors working together to help more and more low-income families open the door to homeownership,” said Mary Kay O'Rourke, HabiJax president. “We are creating communities one home at a time and we are grateful for the support of our corporate sponsors who help us continue our mission of eliminating poverty and substandard housing in Duval County.”
Jacksonville brewery employee volunteers will meet for six consecutive Saturdays this spring as part of their commitment to HabiJax. They will be greeted by a cold slab of concrete on that first day, but working under the supervision of licensed contractors, the volunteers will erect exterior and interior walls; secure roof trusses; install doors and windows; hang and paint siding; paint and landscape.
After six weeks, they will gaze proudly at a completed three-bedroom house. In the words of one Anheuser-Busch volunteer, “It is the closest any of us will come to an old-fashioned barn raising!”
“Our employees realize that they have been blessed with good jobs and they look for ways to give something back to their community, either through the United Way or HabiJax, or through some other worthwhile organization,” said Robinson. “We have all generously given money to charities, but this takes that commitment to a higher, hands-on level.”
And the giving does not stop there, as the brewery employees have collected furniture from family and friends and have purchased home interior gifts for the recipient families.
Anheuser-Busch’s Nutri-Turf operation in Jacksonville has also provided a finishing touch by donating sod to landscape the home. In fact, since 2000, Nutri-Turf has given an estimated 550,000 square feet of sod to landscape more than 100 HabiJax homes.
“We are fortunate to have many caring people at this brewery who have a sense of community,” said Gary McKinney, assistant plant manager, who oversees the project. “Through the donation of money and time to HabiJax, we not only build a home, but we contribute to the creation of a more close-knit, viable community as well as a sense of pride among residents and ultimately, a better Jacksonville.”
HabiJax was founded in 1988 and is the local affiliate for Habitat for Humanity International. Determined to provide Jacksonville’s low income working families with safe, decent housing, HabiJax challenges individuals, families, businesses, foundations and the faith community to work together, creating partnerships that include every segment of the community. HabiJax builds more than 100 homes per year and has constructed nearly 1,500 houses since 1989.