Tag: 3BL

• Lake DeForest has been an indispensable source of drinking water for the Rockland County community since 1956.
• An average of 10 million gallons of water from the Lake DeForest Reservoir are treated and distributed to over 300,000 county residents daily.
• Protecting drinking water supplies like Lake DeForest is a critical part of Veolia’s GreenUp strategy.

WEST NYACK, N.Y., May 15, 2025 /3BL/ – Veolia New York marks National Drinking Water Week (May 4 – 10) by celebrating Lake DeForest Reservoir’s designation as an American Landmark. This recognition by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) is reserved for long-standing buildings, reservoirs or towers that have a direct and significant relationship with water supply, treatment, distribution or technological development.

Chris Graziano, Regional President of Veolia New York said: “Lake DeForest plays a critical role in our ability to supply Rockland County with reliable drinking water. It has also offered generations of customers a beautiful place to escape into nature for bird-watching, fishing and hiking. We’re grateful and excited that the AWWA has recognized Lake DeForest for the important and long-lasting benefits it brings to our community.”

Construction of the reservoir began in 1952 and was completed in 1956. It was named after Benjamin F. DeForest, a former president of the Hackensack Water Company, which later became part of Veolia (formerly United Water and SUEZ).

Lake DeForest collects water from various sources, including the Hackensack River and its tributaries. Water is drawn from the reservoir and treated at an adjacent surface water treatment plant, which has an average treatment capacity of 10 millions gallons per day (MGD). It provides about one third of Rockland’s drinking water.

Over its nearly seven decades, Lake DeForest has also become a popular recreational destination for the local community. Through Veolia’s Watershed Recreation Program, over 800 people register each year to access the reservoir for fishing, hiking and bird watching from mid-April through the end of November.

To celebrate the vitality of the reservoir as an indispensable resource, Veolia opens up the reservoir for community kayaking during its annual Veolia Lake DeForest Day. This event, in its ninth year, also features a kayak challenge between Rockland County’s local volunteer fire departments. This year’s event will be held on Saturday, June 28.

Protecting Drinking Water Supplies is Part of Veolia’s Green Up Strategy

Ensuring access to clean drinking water is at the root of Veolia’s 171-year history. Through its GreenUp strategy, Veolia has reemphasized its commitment to advancing water technologies and solutions that treat new and emerging contaminants. At Lake DeForest’s drinking water plant, the company is investing $100 million over a five-year period to install treatment technology that will address PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and provide for overall enhanced water quality.

ABOUT VEOLIA NORTH AMERICA
A subsidiary of Veolia Group, Veolia North America (VNA) offers a full spectrum of water, waste and energy management services, including water and wastewater treatment, commercial and hazardous waste collection and disposal, energy consulting and resource recovery. VNA helps commercial, industrial, healthcare, higher education and municipality customers throughout North America. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., Veolia North America has more than 10,000 employees working at more than 350 locations across the continent.

www.veolianorthamerica.com

ABOUT VEOLIA GROUP
Veolia Group aims to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Present on five continents with 215,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful, practical solutions for the management of water, waste and energy that are contributing to a radical turnaround of the current situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, to preserve available resources and to renew them. In 2024, the Veolia group provided 111 million inhabitants with drinking water and 98 million with sanitation, produced 42 million megawatt hours of energy and treated 65 million tons of waste. Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE) achieved consolidated revenue of 44.7 billion euros in 2024.

www.veolia.com

CONTACT
VEOLIA NEW YORK
Sophia Salis
Director, Communications and Community Relations
914-506-2327
sophia.salis@veolia.com

ROCHESTER, NY, May 15, 2025 /3BL/ Key Private Bank will be partnering with Rochester Area Community Foundation to share expert insights for local non-profit organizations facing recent uncertainty and navigating the current state of affairs.

The panel, “Strategies for Non-Profits to Navigate Uncertain Times,” is free to attend and will be held from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 21 at the Golisano Institute for Business & Entrepreneurship.

Moderated by KeyBank Rochester Market President and Key Private Bank Market Leader Vincent Lecce, the panel will include:

• Rochester Area Community Foundation President and CEO Simeon Banister
• KeyBank Institutional Advisors National Director of Philanthropic Advice Cindy McDonald
• KeyBank Institutional Advisors National Director of Institutional Investments Ken Senvisky

The forum will provide context, ideas, and best practices on how non-profit leaders can collectively navigate these challenging times.

“There has been a tremendous amount of uncertainty these days, which has been particularly impactful some non-profits that provide necessary services to our community,” said Lecce. “KeyBank is committed to supporting non-profits that help communities thrive.”

Local non-profit leaders and stakeholders are encouraged to attend.

Those interested in attending the panel discussion can register here.

ABOUT KEYCORP

In 2025, KeyCorp celebrates its bicentennial, marking 200 years of service to clients and communities from Maine to Alaska. To learn more, visit KeyBank Heritage Center. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $189 billion at March 31, 2025.

Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and approximately 1,200 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank Member FDIC.

ABOUT ROCHESTER AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

In partnership with generous philanthropists and community partners, Rochester Area Community Foundation works to improve the quality of life for people who live and work in the eight-county region through its leadership and strategic grantmaking. Known as the steward of charitable funds and endowments, the Foundation connects donors with the region’s current and evolving needs. As a leading grantmaker, the Foundation is focused on two broad goals: creating an equitable community and strengthening our region’s vitality. Since it was founded in 1972, the Community Foundation has distributed more than $730 million in grants and scholarships.

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“Living with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) can be an isolating experience,” explains Dilek, a mother of two from Germany who suffers from the rare chronic liver disease.

“All the Feelings with PBC,” a new campaign led by Gilead in collaboration with the PBC Foundation and Friends of the PBC Foundation, aims to change that. The campaign showcases the stories of people living with PBC through paintings by Berlin-based artist Nour Khwies.

Nour’s paintings translate the experiences of patients into a visual art form by vividly portraying the daily challenges of living with PBC and amplifying patients’ emotions. Dilek was the first patient she painted and Nour describes what she captured during the session.

“It’s not something you can see from the outside, but inside, there’s sadness, resilience and a desire not to burden others,” Nour says. “I wanted to express that.”

By transforming lived experiences into visual art, “All the Feelings with PBC” helps build PBC awareness so patients can feel seen, heard and understood. The paintings will be exhibited at medical congresses across Europe through 2026 and will later be auctioned to support the PBC Foundation’s mission.

“It’s critical to create space for honest conversations,” says Carrie Frenette, Executive Director of Global Medical Affairs, Liver Diseases at Gilead. “This initiative helps bring those conversations to the forefront.”

Watch the video to learn more.

Originally published by Gilead Sciences

April is Global Volunteer Month. All month long, we’re recognizing some of the ways Cisco employees give their time, skills, and expertise in their communities.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina formed over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and went on to become a Category 5 storm that would devastate the city of New Orleans. In response to the disaster, Cisco deployed what was then its Tactical Operations, or TacOps, team to help reestablish connectivity for first responders and victims.

Now, 20 years later, what was then TacOps has evolved to become Cisco Crisis Response, a corporate function with a mission of providing connectivity in response to crisis, backed by the strength of more than 800 employee volunteers who comprise the CCR Community.

CCR Community volunteers are ready to be deployed to natural disasters and humanitarian crises on short notice. Their mission is to deliver the connectivity needed to help first responders assess a community’s needs, coordinate an effective response, and begin the process of recovery while enabling victims to contact their loved ones and access the critical information and services they need to rebuild their lives.

To ensure they’re ready when the call comes, hundreds of CCR Community volunteers complete in-person and virtual trainings where they learn how to quickly establish connectivity in the most challenging of circumstances.

CCR Community volunteers recently attended training in Rome and Munich, and I talked to three volunteers who participated: Michele Festuccia, a solutions engineering leader, and Maurizio Cocco, a solutions engineer, both from Italy, and Anna Boom, a customer experience leader in Germany. Here are some highlights from our conversation.

Volunteers Answering the Call

I asked Anna why she signed up to volunteer with the CCR Community.

“Seeing the different areas where the CCR team has deployed—everything from hurricanes to floods and wildfires—and being able to support those missions seemed like such an incredible way to give back to the community,” she said.

It’s a sentiment shared by many CCR volunteers: a desire to contribute to something larger than oneself, alleviate suffering, and stand in solidarity with those affected by crises. CCR allows us to do that in the context of providing Cisco’s unique connectivity offerings—a powerful combination.

Michele shared , “When there is a call, training positions us to be prepared to go in the field to support a critical situation.”

More Than Tech: The Human Element

As the volunteers discovered, volunteering with the CCR Community is about more than technical expertise.

“Our training included crisis simulations. The practice scenario kept us all on our toes and made us realize that when a crisis happens, you have to prepare in different ways that are outside of technical and really come back to connecting with people,” explained Anna.

Having the technical chops to build a wi-fi network when infrastructure is wiped out is one thing, but being a CCR Community volunteer means also needing to deliver human connection and adapt to evolving situations in the moment.

The empathy, communication, and problem-solving skills needed to effectively assist communities during crises are as much a part of the CCR volunteer tools as our rapid response kits, and our Network Emergency Response Vehicle (NERV).

Giving Back is in Cisco’s DNA

Giving back as a habit is part of what it means to work at Cisco and is an important aspect of our culture. In fact, in FY24, 70,000 Cisco employees around the world acted in service of people, planet, and society—the fifth consecutive year that 80% or more of Cisco employees did so.

Maurizio talked about how giving back is just part of what we do.

“It’s part of our DNA to support and to give back during this kind of, let’s say, not so good period,” he said. “As part of Michele’s team during the 2016 earthquake in central Italy, with the support of Cisco, we were able to support those affected and create a sort of hybrid Cisco Meraki kit.”

Michele explained why they volunteered for the CCR Community. “We wanted to join the CCR team to tap into the resources of the larger CCR organization. As Maurizio said, giving back is in the DNA of the people on my team.”

By bringing their expertise and local experience to the CCR Community and leveraging its resources, Maurizio and Michele are able to amplify their impact and create a more coordinated response to crises.

Worldwide Volunteers for Local Impact

Speaking of local experience, talking to Michele, Maurizio, and Anna was a reminder of the value of having and training volunteers worldwide.

When crisis happens, there’s nothing like having a deep bench of trained volunteers all around the globe—one reason why capacity building is one of the key tenets of CCR.

Sending someone who doesn’t speak Italian to respond to a crisis in Italy is just not efficient or effective. At 800 volunteers strong, the CCR Community ensures we bring a wide variety of expertise and skills to every crisis.

Preparedness is Key

The training sessions in Munich and Rome underscored the need for preparedness and clear processes in responding to crises.

“Being prepared and proactive about all the processes that are needed in facing a crisis is critical,” said Maurizio. “Everyone who is a volunteer has to be managed in a proper way in order not to create confusion but to provide help, to provide support.”

Michele agreed: “All our volunteers need to know what they can do and what they can’t do. The capability to plan and to work in a synchronized way with the other people is the first principle that we learned during the training.”

Beyond the Bottom Line

In our discussion, we also talked about the perceived business value of philanthropic work in a corporate context—what value humanitarian work brings to the business side of things.

Michele explained that building relationships and building trust “is a different way to present Cisco to the market.”

A Call to Action

We have the deepest appreciation for the dedication and passion of CCR volunteers. Their stories serve as a powerful reminder that volunteerism is not just about providing aid, but about building connections, fostering resilience, and creating a more compassionate world.

As Anna put it, “Volunteering is a way to give back to the community and support Cisco because it’s such an important thing that we do.”

So, as we celebrate Global Volunteer Month, let us all be inspired by these individuals and find our own unique ways to give back to our communities. Whether it’s through skilled volunteerism, direct service, or simply offering a helping hand, every act of kindness makes a difference.

To learn more about the impact Cisco employees are making, check out our “What We Accomplished” eBook about how we have supported our employees’ giving back efforts and transformed our collective contributions in the process.

View original content here.

Originally posted by WTVI PBS Charlotte

Discover how with a single hydroelectric dam the company rapidly expanded to fuel the region’s booming textile industry.

Click here to watch the video.

Duke Energy

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America’s largest energy holding companies. The company’s electric utilities serve 8.4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 54,800 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas utilities serve 1.7 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. 

 Duke Energy is executing an ambitious energy transition, keeping customer reliability and value at the forefront as it builds a smarter energy future. The company is investing in major electric grid upgrades and cleaner generation, including natural gas, nuclear, renewables and energy storage. 

 More information is available at duke-energy.com and the Duke Energy News Center. Follow Duke Energy on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, and visit illumination for stories about the people and innovations powering our energy transition. 

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2025 /3BL/ – The Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals (ACCP) today announced the release of its 6th Annual Making the Case for Corporate Social Impact Toolkit—a must-have resource for corporate social impact professionals navigating the complex and evolving landscape of corporate responsibility.

Developed to support practitioners in building internal alignment, securing resources, and demonstrating business value, this year’s toolkit includes new data, messaging frameworks, and scenario-based guidance grounded in the latest research and stakeholder insights.

“Corporate social impact professionals face unprecedented pressure to demonstrate the tangible business value of their work and programs,” said Andrea Wood, President & CEO of ACCP. “This toolkit arms practitioners with robust data and a strategic message framework to advocate for their work and clearly align with business goals.”

The 2025 toolkit includes data that supports the following:

• Corporate social impact helps companies retain and recruit top talent
• Integrated corporate social impact programs drive improved financial performance
• Corporate social impact builds brand reputation, loyalty and trust that can spur growth and mitigate risk

The 2025 edition also introduces new content to help practitioners manage rising scrutiny and risk while staying true to company values.

Access the Toolkit 

 

The Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals (ACCP) is the preeminent membership organization advancing the practice of corporate social impact. ACCP increases the effectiveness of corporate social impact professionals and their companies by sharing knowledge, fostering solutions, and cultivating inclusive and supportive peer communities. ACCP amplifies the voices of its practitioner network to elevate strategies that work, provide innovative solutions, and expand impact.

In today’s episode, we’ll be diving into the paper published by KPMG on paving the way for a circular economy in the consumer goods and retail industry, which provides an assessment of how different consumer and retail subsectors are transitioning towards circularity and their maturity. A fitting topic given today is Earth Day.

Click here to listen to episode 37 of ESG voices

In today’s episode, we’ll be diving into the paper published by KPMG on paving the way for a circular economy in the consumer goods and retail industry, which provides an assessment of how different consumer and retail subsectors are transitioning towards circularity and their maturity. A fitting topic given today is Earth Day.

Click here to listen to episode 37 of ESG voices

In today’s episode, we’ll be diving into the paper published by KPMG on paving the way for a circular economy in the consumer goods and retail industry, which provides an assessment of how different consumer and retail subsectors are transitioning towards circularity and their maturity. A fitting topic given today is Earth Day.

Click here to listen to episode 37 of ESG voices

What you need to know:

• Verizon announces a substantial $5 billion commitment over the next five years with the launch of a new Small Business Supplier Accelerator.
• Verizon Small Business Digital Ready launched a new grant cycle where eligible small businesses can apply for $10,000 grants (open until June 30, 2025).

NEW YORK, May 14, 2025 /3BL/ – Verizon today announced a commitment to invest $5 billion over the next five years in US small business suppliers with the launch of its new Small Business Supplier Accelerator. The program helps create a pipeline for American small businesses, many of which are owned by veterans, to work with Verizon and other large corporations. This program is designed to strengthen small businesses — the backbone of the US economy — and to help the country create a more resilient supply chain.

The Verizon Small Business Supplier Accelerator builds on the comprehensive support that Verizon has provided to small businesses and the communities they serve for years. On top of the $5B in supplier spend, the program aims to empower American small businesses to work with Verizon and other large corporations through targeted training and flexible solutions such as faster payment terms, modified insurance requirements and adjusted indemnification requirements. The goal is to make it easier for small businesses to join Verizon’s supplier network.

“Verizon recognizes that small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and a staple in our local communities,” said Hans Vestberg, CEO, Verizon. “Our long-standing commitment and investment in small businesses aims to empower local businesses and communities with financial, technology and business expertise and resources to advance economic growth and foster job creation.”

Keeping nearly 500,000 SMBs digitally ready
Verizon is further fueling small businesses through its Small Business Digital Ready program, a free online program offering small businesses nationwide the opportunity to access over 50 expert on-demand courses curated by and for small businesses; 1:1 expert coaching, online and in-person networking opportunities and access to capital.

In partnership with LISC, Verizon Small Business Digital Ready today announces another Small Business Digital Ready grant opportunity where eligible small businesses who are Digital Ready members (and complete two resources) can apply for $10,000 grants (open until June 30, 2025, at 11:59 pm PT). Since 2021, Verizon has awarded $13.5 million in grants to support small businesses.

Verizon has supported nearly half a million small businesses through Small Business Digital Ready since 2021, almost halfway to the company’s goal to equip one million small businesses with the skills and resources they need to thrive in the digital economy by 2030.

Verizon offers a comprehensive commitment to small businesses that extends beyond a financial investment, aiming to equip these vital economic drivers with the tools and resources small businesses need to grow and protect their businesses using technology.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) powers and empowers how its millions of customers live, work and play, delivering on their demand for mobility, reliable network connectivity and security. Headquartered in New York City, serving countries worldwide and nearly all of the Fortune 500, Verizon generated revenues of $134.8 billion in 2024. Verizon’s world-class team never stops innovating to meet customers where they are today and equip them for the needs of tomorrow. For more, visit verizon.com or find a retail location at verizon.com/stores.

VERIZON’S ONLINE MEDIA CENTER: News releases, stories, media contacts and other resources are available at verizon.com/news. News releases are also available through an RSS feed. To subscribe, visit www.verizon.com/about/rss-feeds/.

Media Contact:
Hope Armanus
hope.arcuri.armanus@verizon.com
6469834148