Pioneers Celebrate 100 Years of Service and Fellowship
Pioneers Commemorate Centennial in Boston with Service Project to Feed 7,500 Children
DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Pioneers, the largest industry-related volunteer organization in the world, will celebrate its centennial anniversary on November 2, 2011. Founded in Boston in 1911, Pioneers will return to this founding city to host its centennial celebration complete with a community service project that will help feed food insecure children in the Boston area.
“While the telecom industry has evolved and changed over the past 100 years, Pioneers have remained a steadfast thread committed to our core tenets of service, fellowship and loyalty,” said Carey Wirtzfeld, president of Pioneers. “We’re proud to celebrate this milestone made possible by our amazing volunteers who have invested their time, money, effort and hearts to make our world a better place.”
Originally the Telephone Pioneers of America, Pioneers was founded in Boston at a meeting at the Somerset Hotel where 244 founding members gathered including Alexander Graham Bell. The major goals were to perpetuate the ideals and traditions of the industry and promote the friendships that were formed as a natural result of their teamwork. Today, Pioneers has grown to 620,000 current members across the U.S. and Canada working with its sponsors including AT&T, Bell Aliant, CenturyLink, SaskTel, Verizon Foundation, FairPoint Communications, Frontier and Telcordia
Throughout their 100-year history, the Pioneers have helped millions of people in a wide variety of unique ways including:
- Painting maps of the U.S. and Canada across more than 10,000 playgrounds to teach children geography
- Inventing beeping baseballs so that blind children can play baseball as well as beeping Easter eggs so blind children can participate in egg hunts
- Building special trikes so that children with motor and developmental issues can ride bikes
During the centennial event, Pioneers will help the Greater Boston Food Bank pack bags of nutritious, easy-to-prepare food for the families of 7,500 children to ensure they get enough food on weekends and holidays when they can’t depend on school meals. These bags will be given to the Greater Boston Food Bank to distribute to select schools in districts where a high-percentage of students qualify for free or reduced price school meals.
“For a century, Pioneers have made a difference in thousands of communities, for millions of people with more than 15 million volunteer hours logged annually,” said James M. Schmit, Chairman of the Board, Pioneers and CenturyLink Vice President and General Manager for Idaho. “As the largest industry-related volunteer organization in the world, thousands of organizations have received the benefits of Pioneers service including military, the National Park Service, the American and Canadian Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, national health organizations and thousands of schools across the U.S. and Canada.”
As a way to commemorate its Centennial year, Pioneers launched its Volunteer Community Grants Program in January 2011 which provided over $675,000 in grant funds to make a difference in 21 communities across North America. Additionally, Pioneers launched its Dish It Up food project in September 2011, which raised more than $800,000 worth of meals and provided 1.3 million hours of volunteer hours to communities.
The Pioneers centennial meeting will kick off November 2, 2011 and culminate on November 5th with a large celebratory gala featuring keynote speaker Karen James, philanthropist and author of the book “Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood,” who will talk about the impact of giving back. More than 1,200 meeting attendees will receive a welcome from Boston Mayor Tom Menino.
ABOUT PIONEERS
Founded in 1911 as the Telephone Pioneers of America, Pioneers has grown to be the largest industry-related volunteer organization in the world. A non-profit network of more than 620,000 volunteers, Pioneers is committed to effect immediate, tangible change in local communities in partnership with its sponsors such as AT&T, Bell Aliant, CenturyLink, SaskTel, Verizon Foundation, FairPoint Communications, Frontier and Telcordia, as well as through its non-sponsored New Outlook and Canadian Pioneers groups. Committed to serving communities in the United States, Canada and around the world, Pioneers is headquartered in Denver, Colo. For more information visit www.pioneersvolunteer.org or call 1-800-976-1914.
CONTACT:
Fitzgerald Petersen for Pioneers
Heather Lindemann, 303-570-0011
heather@fitzgeraldpetersen.com
KEYWORDS: United States North America Colorado Massachusetts
INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Technology Telecommunications Philanthropy Other Philanthropy
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