JE Dunn Awards Centennial Campaign Grants to First Recipients
In January, President and CEO Gordon Lansford announced Building a Legacy: A Century of Generosity, a transformative national giving campaign in honor of the company’s centennial year. As a part of this effort, JE Dunn employees voted on 10 charitable organizations to receive a surprise gift of $100,000 each throughout the year for a total impact of $1 million nationwide.
“It’s our goal to celebrate the impact that JE Dunn and our employees have made on the communities where we live and work, now for an entire century,” JE Dunn Community Impact Director Nancy Phelps said. “It’s an incredible honor to recognize these amazing organizations and help them further their mission.”
See the grant recipients honored in the first half of 2024:
Our Kids, based out of Nashville, Tennessee, was the first nonprofit to receive their grant via a surprise delivery and celebration in February. The organization provides essential and unduplicated medical forensic evaluations and crisis counseling for children and families struggling with the issue of child sexual abuse.
Since 2014, JE Dunn has hosted an annual Hammer Down 5K race through the streets of Nashville to raise money for the organization. With the Building a Legacy grant, JE Dunn has now donated more than $1 million to Our Kids.
“I know for sure there is no other community partner more loyal, creative, and generous than JE Dunn,” Our Kids Executive Director Sue Fort White said. “This capital grant will allow Our Kids the opportunity to renovate our clinic and other areas of the building. Our staff all cried when I called them about the grant. They need and deserve to have a beautiful, updated space where they can do this challenging, sometimes soul-crushing work together.”
In March, Kanbe’s Market became the second nonprofit to receive the surprise donation. The Kansas City organization strives to build a more inclusive food system by transforming food loss into food access. They leverage a community of volunteers to divert fruits and vegetables from going to landfills and deliver it to a network of over 55 store locations in USDA “low-food-access” neighborhoods for free.
“For our work to be recognized and supported by such a successful and respected company is an immense honor. We are proud to hold many of the same values as JE Dunn, especially our shared commitment to innovation, sustainability, and community,” Founder and CEO of Kanbe’s Market Maxfield Kaniger said.
From Fort Collins, Colorado Youth Outdoors (CYO) was the third organization JE Dunn employees selected for a grant. CYO focuses on building healthy relationships using outdoor recreation. With this donation, the focus is on providing and improving current structures on their property to be more ADA accessible to allow high-quality programming to anyone of any level of ability.
“This gift is a signature to how invested JE Dunn is in our community,” Bob Hewson, President and CEO of Colorado Youth Outdoors, said. “Through financial, labor, and missional support, our two organizations can come together yet again to celebrate something so special. We’re very thankful, extremely humbled, and we love our relationship with JE Dunn.”
In 2020, JE Dunn successfully concluded the construction of a state-of-the-art summer camp facility for the Greater Austin YMCA, known as Camp Moody. Since its inauguration, YMCA Camp Moody has been instrumental in delivering diverse programs, including day camps, outdoor education in collaboration with local school districts, family campouts, specialty weekends, nature therapy, retreats for individuals seeking respite, and crucial drowning prevention initiatives facilitated by the utilization of the newly installed 10-lane pool.
JE Dunn’s unwavering support of Camp Moody has been evident through various volunteer engagements, such as the construction of a gaga ball pit, canoe and kayak racks, installation of new fencing, enhanced lighting systems, and maintenance of existing infrastructure.
JE Dunn has completed over 10 projects for Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska; these builds have allowed Boys Town to better serve the Omaha community. The JE Dunn team was eager to support the Boys Town mission outside of our construction efforts. JE Dunn employees nominated and selected them to receive JE Dunn’s Building a Legacy $100,000 grant, which will allow for the expansion of the pre-/post-procedural area of the surgery center to serve more patients.
Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center’s (DCAC’s) clients are children who have been sexually abused, severely physically abused, experienced extreme neglect, or witnessed a violent crime. DCAC brings together under one roof the specialized staff who provide direct client services (forensic interviews, wraparound support services, therapeutic counseling) as well as the public entities that investigate crimes against children (law enforcement, protective services, county prosecutor). DCAC’s capital projects outlined in this request maintain and improve a secure environment to best serve child abuse survivors and their non-offending family members, as well as to honor the safety and accessibility needs of staff and clients.
