Spectrum Summer Interns are Volunteers at Heart

Millennials get a lot of ink about being the purpose-driven generation. Last month, 84 summer interns from colleges around the country kicked off their 10 weeks at Spectrum by donating over 200 hours of service through the Spectrum Housing Assist Program.

Interns in Denver, St. Louis, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Stamford, Connecticut, rolled up their sleeves June 2 to improve communities with Rebuilding Together, our national nonprofit partner.

They knocked on doors to install smoke detectors, cleaned up a creek bed, improved a home in a historic neighborhood, and beautified a local park. Our interns got the chance to see the company’s philanthropic values at work in the community firsthand.

“We were thrilled to give our corporate interns the opportunity to volunteer during their first week aboard,” said Paul Marchand, Executive Vice President, Human Resources. “It was an invaluable experience for everyone involved, and set the tone for the kind of engaged commitment we value at Charter Communications.”

Keep reading to see the projects they tackled.

 

In the Mile-High City

Forty-six interns from the Denver area teamed up with Rebuilding Together Metro Denver and the American Red Cross to make a difference in Aurora, Colorado. The interns split up into teams to tackle the task at hand. They went door to door to install smoke alarms, hand out carbon monoxide detectors and replace exterior light bulbs for homeowners in the neighborhood.

 

Meet Me in St. Louis

After three days of corporate training, 16 interns in St. Louis took the state’s “Show-Me” slogan into practice and showed us how volunteering is done. The interns donned safety goggles and rubber gloves to clean up trash and debris in a creek bed near St. Charles Rock Road.

 

Revisiting Charlotte

In early April, Spectrum employee volunteers visited the Camp Greene neighborhood to help a homeowner named Priscilla through the Spectrum Housing Assist initiative. Two months later, six corporate interns from Charlotte went back to Priscilla’s home to provide additional assistance on June 2. The group of interns and employees from the Charlotte office completed landscaping projects, mowed the lawn, pressure washed all concrete surfaces, and planted flower gardens in the front and backyards.

 

Hometown Service

Sixteen interns from Charter headquarters in Stamford came ready to work in the morning at the Cedar Street Playground. Tucked behind the popular Harbor Point neighborhood of Stamford is a residential area of multi-family homes dating back to the early 1900s. There, wedged between two homes on Cedar Street, lies a quiet park often overrun with trash. Area children navigate the playground equipment, the four square court’s faded colors, and the basketball court, among the glass bottles and trash.

Volunteers picked up trash, pulled weeds, planted new flowers, cut down overgrown vines, cleaned up murals, repainted the four square and basketball courts and raked the mulch on the playground.

By day’s end, our interns in each city were proud of the work they had accomplished.