Community Matters – This Year and Every Year

Raising money for local charitable organizations has long been important to VAA. Over the years our employees have had many ways to get involved and give back to their community, whether by participating in home building, packaging meals, donating blood, or volunteering time to students. The largest financial impact, however, is always made during VAA’s annual two-week Community Caring Campaign (CCC), and this year’s hybrid campaign was no exception.

Each year VAA’s Designing a Difference Team selects two or three Twin Cities charities on which to focus its fundraising support during the campaign. This year VAA’s participants raised money for three local nonprofit organizations: Interfaith Outreach and Community Partners, Second Harvest Heartland, and the Sabathani Community Center. All three organizations work in our local communities to support families and neighborhoods, providing food or other important resources to people in need.

During the 2021 CCC, which was held the first two weeks of August, a calendar of fun events, activities, and competitions was planned to get staff engaged and excited about donating. “Working during a pandemic is a challenge, and with many employees teleworking or coming into the office part-time, it’s not always easy for people to know where or how to give back,” said Project Manager Paul Antila, PMP, who led this year’s fundraising campaign. “Integrating VAA’s CCC events into normal working hours and then making sure they’re a lot of fun helps motivate our staff to participate.”

Aside from making a financial pledge, some of the ways employees could get involved this year included playing virtual Bingo (always a big hit with our staff!), participating in a silent auction, taking a paint class, purchasing sweets from a treat trolley, or attending VAA’s outdoor barbeque and taking their turn at dunking our CEO and company partners.

This year’s CCC exceeded VAA’s goal of $45,000 and then some! A total of $59,726 was raised by VAA’s generous staff, partners, and clients. These funds will go a long way towards helping the 1 in 10 people (and 1 in 7 kids) currently experiencing hunger in our state. For example, the portion of donations raised for Second Harvest alone can provide up to 94,419 meals.

CCC 2021 by the numbers:

$22,051 raised for IOCP

$32,643 raised for Second Harvest

$5,032 raised for Sabathani Community Center

Learn more about VAA’s CCC in an article published in ACEC’s Engineering Inc.