On Wednesday, May 9th, 25 volunteers from CVS Corporate Headquarters volunteered at River Island Art Park in an effort to prepare the riverfront park for the upcoming Levitt AMP Woonsocket Concert Series running Friday nights, June 29-August 31.
Tasked with a laundry-list of projects, these volunteers did not hesitate to roll up their sleeves and get to work. In just two short hours they managed to scrape and repaint the band stand, plant roses and day lilies (provided by the Downtown Woonsocket Collaborative) in front of the Historical Society, clean up the parking lot at 15 Island Place making it safe for cars, rake up all of the sticks and debris in the park making it the perfect place to lay out a blanket and sit down for some music, and they even put a fresh coat of paint on the benches.
The volunteers were part of the Internal Audit team at CVS. Some were visiting from as far away as Chicago and Arizona for a team meeting and took the time to give back to the local community while they were in town (even if that meant painting in a dress shirt).
CVS encourages and promotes “volunteerism by organizing structured group services that benefit CVS Health nonprofit partners” (cvshealth.com). This project was coordinated through staff at the United Way of Rhode Island, who were also on site to help manage the project and ensure that everyone was engaged in the clean up.
The group was fun, highly productive, and committed to finishing the project. Even after their two hours were up, they hung around a bit longer to put a fresh coat of paint on one of the trash cans, taking the clean up to a whole new level.
We hope the local volunteers will return with their families this summer, joining for a concert or two and seeing the true impact of their efforts.
From all of us at NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley we send a big THANK YOU to the CVS Team!
