News

VOLUNTEERISM: Kodak workers give Lifetime Assistance Inc. in Chili a spring cleaning as part of the United Way’s Day of Caring.

By MIKE MURPHY
mmurphy@messengerpostmedia.com
Courtesy of Messenger Post Media

Dan May of Brockport, an employee of Eastman Kodak’s entertainment
imaging division, participated in the United Way Day of Caring last
Thursday at Lifetime Assistance Inc. HSBC bank and Patrick Electric
employees also helped the Chili-based agency.

Time is valuable to Daniel King, a Spencerport resident who works for Eastman Kodak Co.’s entertainment imaging division, and he enjoys doing yardwork.

So, when his supervisor mentioned the United Way Day of Caring Thursday at Lifetime Assistance Inc., where Kodak workers have been coming for 15 years to spruce up the Chili facility, it was a no-brainer.

“This is a good way to get outside and do something meaningful,” said King, who made his first trip for the event Thursday.  “This is an opportunity to help others out.”

Besides the Kodak workers, folks at HSBC bank and Patrick Electric also said so long to cubicles and ringing telephones and hello to Lifetime, working at the Chili headquarters or at the 30 or so homes where adults with developmental disabilities live.

About 450 workers from Kodak alone came to help out, planting flowers, weeding, fixing up picnic benches just about any other project that needed to be done, said Ron Pikulski, director of transportation and maintenance for Lifetime.

“They save the agency a ton of money,” Pikulski said. “A lot of the things we wouldn’t be able to do. We put a lot of pride in our buildings, and they put the topping on it.”

For many of the volunteers, working at Lifetime is an annual event.

Wendy Cleveland of Webster has been helping out for 11 years. Most times she’s helped with landscaping, but she remembers building a shed and painting benches in previous visits.

“When we get to see how much they enjoy it, it’s rewarding,” Cleveland said.

Many of the volunteers who go to one of the residences to help keep coming back year after year, too, Pikulski said.

“They feel part of it,” Pikulsi said. “They have a better understanding of what Lifetime’s about, and what the people are about.