The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
THANKING OUR CORPORATE CITIZENS
It wasn't too long ago when we were asked to 'dig deeper' into a story to find out why at least one of our local corporate giants wasn't 'spending any money on the community anymore.'
The suggestion at the time surprised us and we quickly defended this one large corporate giant (with a good sized operation in Princeton) for doing a lot of good with donations quietly made to mostly youth-oriented projects and spending money on supporting the much smaller non-profit groups which often get missed or forgotten when grants seem to be handed out.
We forgot about that conversation until the recent announcement by Weyerhaeuser regarding their annual Jobs For Youth Grant Program. They are just one example of a large corporate giant giving back to the community.
When you think about it, there are a lot of examples just in Princeton alone. If you expand that to include the entire Similkameen Valley it becomes hard not to find an example of this.
FortisBC's cash donation to Similkameen Sizzle in Keremeos comes to mind as well as the many projects Valley First Credit Union has put their fingers into, Compliance Energy, Princeton Light & Power, Overwaitea...the list is very long and although many are skeptical of the motives behind many of the donations, the fact remains that the community - the Similkameen Valley for that matter - has benefitted greatly by these and many other corporate giants.
Like it or not, many of them have been responsible for providing cash donations, material donations and manpower donations to either create or enhance a number of projects in and around our community.
Help like that is greatly appreciated by those directly affected by their support, but what about the rest of us?
If you take a look around at any community project you'll find local residents involved in some way through a non-profit club, group or organization. But if you look a little deeper you'll normally find a large corporate giant fueling the project with something.
It's not always to get their name on something...but it's ALWAYS to get the job done.
We thank these corporate giants for what they have done and continue to do for our community and valley.
Without their help, in many ways we'd have a lot of unfinished projects sitting and collecting dust.
We appreciate the fact that these companys are not afraid to put their money where it counts...back into the communities they are taking the money from.
