The Gap: Giving with open 'hands'

By Jason Wyman

Gap Inc. employs more than 134,000 people, making it one of its biggest community assets.

The San Francisco-based company provides six employee engagement programs that provide volunteer hours and mini-grants to non-profit organizations and sees a direct connection between its employees’ volunteerism and their commitment to Gap Inc. It believes engaged employees deliver strong business results, which is good for the community and their company.

The organization HandsOn Bay Area creates opportunities for people to volunteer, learn and lead in their communities. It works with local nonprofits, schools and parks to identify high-impact, group-based volunteer projects. For corporate clients, it offers comprehensive planning services for employee volunteer events through its Hands@Work program. Gap Inc. has been a corporate partner of Hands@Work since 2002 providing more than 2,300 volunteers in service areas including school restoration, youth mentoring, educational materials and environmental clean-up.

Urban Sprouts cultivates school gardens in San Francisco’s under-served neighborhoods by partnering with youth and their families to build eco-literacy, equity, wellness and community. They have provided garden-based education to San Francisco public schools since 2004, reaching more 700 students annually. Students plant, harvest, cook and eat healthy food from school gardens, thus mastering science and nutrition concepts in a fun and hands-on way.

Of the students Urban Sprouts serves, 61 percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, 22 percent are English Language Learners (ELL) students and 90 percent failed to reach physical fitness standards in 2006. The schools Urban Sprouts provides services to are International Studies Academy, Aptos Middle School, Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School, June Jordan School for Equity, San Francisco Community School, Ida B. Wells Continuation School and Log Cabin Ranch (a juvenile detention facility).

Urban Sprouts’ core garden-based education program takes place during science classes or gardening elective classes. The garden-based classes meet for at least one hour every other week throughout the school year for a total of 20 hours of education for every student. Each session is led by a garden educator and includes interactive learning and garden work. Every student experiences the full process of planting, growing, harvesting and eating crops from the school garden at least three times during the school year. The garden is the classroom.

In 2008, Urban Sprouts reached out to HandsOn Bay Area to become a local nonprofit partner. This effort put Urban Sprouts on HandsOn Bay Area’s radar and Hands On Bay Area began looking for opportunities to support Urban Sprouts. In October, everything came together in a day of service at Ida B. Wells Continuation High School, a high school Urban Sprouts has been at since 2005.

Fourteen Gap employees arrived on a bus bringing with them enthusiasm and time. They also came with money, which provided Urban Sprouts the capacity to purchase supplies for cold frames (small portable green houses) and an irrigation system.

“What’s great about getting Gap volunteers isn’t just that they come ready to work,” said Audrey Roderick, Community Programs Manager for Urban Sprouts. “It’s that they also come with money for supplies, which is incredibly helpful for small non-profits like Urban Sprouts.”

Gap volunteers built new plant beds and cold frames and planted perennials and large bushes for erosion control. The day’s goal was to build community, educate volunteers on garden-based education and improve the garden’s functionality and sustainability. The day was a success for all three organizations.

By collaborating in this manner, Gap Inc, HandsOn Bay Area and Urban Sprouts were able to increase the impact and reach of a single volunteer event. Urban Sprouts did not need to spend hours recruiting volunteers. Rather they were able to focus on one project that would improve its organization. Gap Inc did not need to spend its time finding a local organization that met its volunteer needs. Rather they were able to show up knowing that the work that day was important and impactful. HandsOn Bay Area acted as the connector ensuring that all needs were met.

The improvements made to the garden this Fall were improvements made to the living classroom. These changes provide a better educational experience when students come to the garden and enable them to get to work planting, weeding and harvesting. They also beautify the garden providing a more aesthetic learning environment.
Karen Baker, Secretary of Service and Volunteering for the State of California, said that the era when volunteering was just “a nice thing to do” is over.
“The health of many of our social services depends on the involvement of the private sector in a systemic, strategic way,” she said.

For more information on Gap Inc.’s social responsibility, visit www.gapinc.com/GapIncSubSites/csr/index.shtml. For more information on HandsOn Bay Area, visit www.handsonbayarea.org. For more information about Urban Sprouts, visit http://urbansprouts.blogspot.com/.

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