Community Sponsors Support Education Across the Board  12/01/05

Whatcom Community Connections is to a large extent a Business-Education Partnership program.  Many of our Community Partners are business owners and employers who participate by sharing their professional experience with students.  The hours our Community Partners share with students and educators are invaluable.  Another critical piece of making the program hum is the dollars that support it, and a number of our Community Partners have chosen to sponsor the program by offering financial contributions in addition to their time.

Mike Abendhoff, Director of Public Affairs for BP Cherry Point gives $5001 to Holly Hinman, Program Coordinator of Whatcom Community Connections.

This month’s Spotlight article is to acknowledge our major business sponsors, not only for the support they offer Whatcom Community Connections, but also the multitude of ways they support other community and education efforts.  Three sponsors we’ll visit in this article are  BP Cherry Point, Conoco Phillips, and Whatcom Educational Credit Union.  Whatcom Community Connections has other sponsors and program partners, and we encourage you to read more about them in the Program Sponsors pages of our website.  Whatcom Community Connections wishes to thank our sponsors warmly! 

BP Cherry Point

BP Cherry Point is our most recent sponsor, offering a generous donation of $5001 in November 2005 to support the administrative costs of running the program.  The one extra dollar was in the spirit of friendly competition with ConocoPhillips, who has given $5000 to Whatcom Connections annually for a number of years.  BP has participated in Whatcom Connections for many years by sending a small army of employees to the Bellingham high schools for mock job interviews.  Students in business classes complete a unit of study on job seeking skills, which include writing resumes, cover letters, and practicing job interview skills.  The culmination of the unit is a mock job interview with a real employer.  Although many local employers send representatives to the event, Lee Hawley in human resources at BP has been a major contributor by organizing and sending 5-10 refinery employees twice a year. 

Mike Abendhoff, the Director for Public Affairs at BP Cherry Point, presented the $5001 donation to Holly Hinman, Program Coordinator for Whatcom Community Connections,  in mid November.  Mike shared some of the other ways that Cherry Point supports local education.  “Contributing to education is an important part of our corporate mission.” Mike said.  He also shared that strengthening math and science education is important to BP because it has a direct positive impact on the future of technical industries like refining. 

This fall Cherry Point is giving away 110 laptop computers to Whatcom County schools who apply.  The application is available to educators online at the BP Cherry Point Refinery Community Information Center website.  Public and private schools are invited to apply by December 16^th, and Abendhoff is encouraging all grade levels to apply.  Mike said, “Getting students interested in math and science starts in the elementary grades.  We also wanted to include local private schools because they are sometimes forgotten in these kinds of programs.”  For a number of years Cherry Point has funded teacher scholarships for 10 Washington state teachers to attend week long National Energy Education Development seminars in the summer.  NEED focuses on science curriculum relating to energy sources and seeks to engage students from primary grades throughout high school.

ConocoPhillips Ferndale

 ConocoPhillips Ferndale refinery has been involved with Whatcom Community Connections and Whatcom County Tech Prep for the past 8 years.  Since 1999 they’ve contributed $5000 each year to Whatcom Community Connections.  Back then, the program was called the Clearinghouse Network, and Jerry Eklund at ConocoPhillips was the person who started the ball rolling with financial support.  Kathleen Pennington, current Manager of Employee-Community Relations, sits on the Whatcom County Tech Prep Steering Committee to carry on the tradition of providing a business perspective in support of career and technical education at the high school level. 

Kathleen recently shared some of the many other ways ConocoPhillips has contributed to local education.  Like BP, many of their education efforts focus on supporting math and science education.  ConocoPhillips has sponsored math championships at the county and state level across all grade levels for two decades, and have shared engineering expertise by coaching students for the National Bridge Building Contest for many years.  The company also gave $75,000 toward air quality projects at county schools including indoor air quality projects at 4 schools.  Bellingham and Mount Baker school districts each received a Toyota Prius to use in their Driver’s Education classes as part of the air quality grants.  Ferndale High School teachers received classroom computers through ConocoPhillips as well.

 Students who are college bound can benefit from ConocoPhillips sponsored scholarships at Whatcom Community College and Western Washington University.  Both BP Cherry Point and ConocoPhillips are major contributors to the Process Technology program at Bellingham Technical College, and are sponsors of the Road Less Graveled career fair at BTC every spring.

 Whatcom Educational Credit Union 

In June of 2005 Whatcom Educational Credit Union gave a $1000 donation to Whatcom Community Connections to help cover the program’s web hosting fees.  Kari Olson, Accounts Control Manager for WECU, is the chair of the credit union’s Social Responsibility Committee and shared some history about the committee’s role in community giving.

 “The SRC was started back in 2000.  WECU wanted to come up with a way to insure that we were actually giving back to the community. The feeling was that a committee whose main goal was to see that happen would be the best way to go. The committee has been running strong ever since and has now involved itself in more areas such as Hispanic and Latin American outreach, financial literacy, intern programs, scholarships and many other areas.” Kari said.  Donations are focused in the areas of health, education, and community efforts and the committee is comprised of WECU board members, employees and the community at large.  Community members and agencies who are interested may apply for funding quarterly by submitting an application form found at the SRC page of the WECU website. 

WECU employees also give through sweat equity projects such as trail maintenance and Habitat for Humanity efforts.  When asked what she wants people to know about the Social Responsibility Committee, Kari replied, “That we take pride in what we do:  in the donations we recommend for approval, and the projects that we work on. It is very important to WECU.  We try very hard to insure that all in the community are able to benefit.”

HOME