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Connecting with Colleagues and Communities

WA Cares is the firm’s community service program that addresses the current and future needs of our metropolitan area. WA Cares (Community Action by Responsible Employees in Service) uses direct employee participation and corporate sponsorship to support those organizations and projects that empower others to excel. Our primary efforts are centered on feeding and clothing men, women, and children; educating youth; and raising funds for health causes and disaster relief.

Recent Events

4th Annual Service Day: 2022 Meals of Hope

Our 4th Annual WA Cares Service Day was a resounding success! This year, we partnered with Meals of Hope to pack and donate 30,000 meals for our local DC food bank. As 2022 was our 40th Anniversary, we were thrilled that we were able to commemorate this milestone with a very special Service Day activity that directly supports families and individuals in need!

  • On September 29, 2022, we met at our DC Office.

  • In the WA spirit of healthy competition, we divided into 3 teams, one for each department.

  • Each team consisted of 2 assembly lines, each with a target quota of 5,000 meals.

  • Each assembly line was facilitated by a group leader (Melinda Buck, Elizabeth Lainhart, Vanessa Angeles, Edwen Delcid, Nicole Bailey, Edouard Julien).

  • Assembly lines worked as a team to pack chicken vegetable soup meals.

Additionally, while we are becoming an increasingly nationwide firm with remote employees from all over the country, our nonlocal team members showed their WA Cares spirit by sharing important causes they have independently supported in the last year! This support includes charitable contributions to organizations like Second Harvest, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and local Animal Shelters and Dog Rescues. It also includes volunteer work for the International WeLoveU Foundation, a nonprofit and NGO associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications that conducts charitable activities to promote education, emergency relief, health, community well-being, international aid, and the environment.

Williams Adley, through WA Cares, is committed to serving our community, and we are so grateful to Meals of Hope and to all the local and nonlocal employees who participated in making this year's Service Day a success! Thank you to all of our employees that participated!

3rd Annual Service Day: 2021 Charity Miles Competition

In celebrating our WA Cares 3rd Annual Service Day, our 2020 Charity Miles event was so successful, we did it again in 2021!! With COVID still very present in the community, it was still challenging to plan an event that was safe, engaging, supportive of our community, and fun! Charity Miles was the perfect solution again. Again, this year, we combined our WA Cares program with our WA Fit program by walking, running, or biking for a charity! To make it more exciting, it was a friendly competition too!

The 2-week challenge took place Sunday, September 12 through Sunday, September 30

  • Our staff split up into 3 teams, each led by a Partner

  • Each Partner selected one of the following charities:

  • During the 2-week time period, we used the Charity Miles App to record each team’s movement (walking, running, biking, hiking, etc.) in miles

  • The team with the most combined miles won 1st place and $2,500 for their charity, with $1,500 awarded for 2nd place, and $1,000 for 3rd place

  • Also, all individual miles were matched by the firm up to $50 (1 mile = $1), and the funds were allotted to each team’s charity

  • On Thursday, September 30th, we celebrated our efforts by having a virtual Service Day Party that hosted a representative for each charity, revealed the winning team, and presented them with a virtual award!

  • Total Monetary Donations:

    • Habitat for Humanity: We donated a total of $3,002

    • Mission:Brain Foundation: We donated a total of $2,094

    • Kaboom!: We donated a total of $1,467

2nd Annual Service Day: 2020 Charity Miles Competition

As we are sure you can imagine, planning an event that was safe, engaging, supportive of our community, and fun during a pandemic was challenging. Well, we did just that! This year, we combined our WA Cares program with our WA Fit program and walked, ran, or biked for charity! To make things even more exciting, We made it a friendly competition too! 

  • The 2-week challenge took place Sunday, August 16 through Sunday, August 30

  • Our staff split up into 3 teams, each led by a Partner

  • Each Partner selected one of the following charities:

  • During the 2-week time period, we used the Charity Miles App to record each team’s movement (walking, running, biking, hiking, etc.) in miles

  • The team with the most combined miles won 1st place and $2,500 for their charity, with $1,500 awarded for 2nd place, and $1,000 for 3rd place

  • Also, all individual miles were matched by the firm up to $50 (1 mile = $1), and the funds were allotted to each team’s charity

  • On Friday, September 4th, we celebrated our efforts by having a virtual Service Day Party that revealed the winning team and presented them with a virtual award!

  • Total Monetary Donations:

    • Hyacinth’s Place: We donated a total of $1,558

    • Black Lives Matter - DC Chapter: We donated a total of $1,933

    • National Alliance for Mental Illness - DC Chapter: We donated a total of $3,339

1st Annual Service Day: 2019 DC Urban Greens

Although we have been serving our community for many years, 2019 hosted our 1st Annual Service Day on September 5, 2019, which happened to fall on the National Day of Service, also known as the International Day of Charity! To celebrate this inaugural event, all employees contributed a full work day of service, as well as a considerable monetary donation, to DC UrbanGreens (www.dcurbangreens.org), a local farm whose mission is to increase the accessibility of affordable, healthy foods to residents living in DC’s food desert neighborhoods.

At DC UrbanGreens, our firm’s full participation and service included demolishing, installing, and organizing a shed, seed-blocking, harvesting produce, trenching, creating vegetable beds, weeding, planting, and so much more!

We had a wonderful time ‘Connecting with Colleagues and the Community’ and are proud to support this mission!

 

Clothing and Mentoring Women

STRIVE is a local nonprofit organization that assists “hard to employ” women prepare for the corporate workforce. WA Cares supports STRIVE by providing business clothing, mentoring women, conducting mock interviews, offering resume building sessions, and assisting with employment applications.

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Toiletries for Veterans

Our staff collect toiletries from their travels and collect donations to contribute to local organizations supporting veterans.

Supporting Health Causes and Disaster Relief Efforts

WA Cares actively participates in various fundraising efforts and service events throughout the year to help raise awareness and necessary funds for health-related causes, to feed and clothe the homeless, and to support disaster relief efforts.  Notable efforts include:

  • Collection of funds for the American Red Cross

  • Susan G Komen - Race for the Cure

  • Shoe Drive

  • Gifts For The Homeless

  • Food 2 Feed

  • Thanksgiving Dinner for Seniors

  • DC Servathon

  • Diabetes Walk

We also sponsor a year-round “Jeans Friday” that supports our semiannual food donation to the DC Food Bank/Central Kitchen and a monetary contribution to So Others Might Eat.

 
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Junior Achievement

Our WA Cares team assisted Junior Achievement as Educators at Anne Beers Elementary School.

Supporting Youth Education and Programs

Children are our future, and Williams Adley understands that education is critical to their success. WA Cares sponsors an annual book drive as well as a backpack drive to support local elementary schools and tutors, and mentors children in the metropolitan area.

Additionally, we support youth organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and lead an annual toy drive for the Toys for Tots Foundation and A Wider Circle.

Through our various efforts, we show our local community that WA Cares! 

 

Giving Tree

Each year WA Cares works with a local organization to support a local family in celebrating the holiday season.

2013 to 2019 Donations and Events

  • DC UrbanGreens: All employees from Williams Adley donated a full work day of service, and we made a considerable monetary donation of $7,000 to purchase and build a new shed, install plastic over our hoop houses for winter planting, and add new tools to our equipment.

  • Junior Achievement: Together with 15 members of our team, WA Cares taught young people in Washington, DC innovative financial literacy.

  • St. Jude's Walk/Run: Raised funds and walked/ran to end childhood cancer.

  • Feed the DMV: Collected toiletries and household items to support veterans moving into housing.

  • Thanksgiving Baskets: Collected food items for 3 families to celebrate Thanksgiving.

  • Holiday "Adopt A Family": Collectively purchased gifts for a family's Christmas tree.

  • Montgomery County Coalition: We donated 50 pounds of toiletries.

  • Toys for Tots Campaign: We donated a total of 367 toys in 2012 and 2013.

  • Backpack Drive: Between 2012 and 2017, we donated over 200 backpacks filled with school supplies to DC schools.

  • Monetary donations

    • So Others Might Eat: We donated a total of over $3,600.

    • American Red Cross: We donated $1,500 to help for the Nepal relief efforts