Community Stewardship

It’s not uncommon for high-end landscape clients to spend six figures or more on a project. When Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Stone Mountain, GA looked at upgrading its grounds, however, its congregants got a lot for a little. The immigrant parish was the recipient of donated products along with more than 800 manhours of work from four branches of Ruppert Landscape, a Laytonsville, MD-based company, which tied the project in with both its corporate giving campaign and a field day for employees. The result: the 2019 Community Stewardship Judges’ Choice award from the Georgia Urban Ag Council. Amy Snyder, Ruppert’s director of public relations, explains the company has been giving to charitable causes for more than 40 years. As the company grew, that giving has evolved to include large-scale events called “field days,” which at times involved as many as 600 employees. “We’ve renovated numerous parks, 26 District of Columbia public schools in one day, and, in 2015, the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington as part of our field day efforts,” Snyder says. ”Our biggest consideration when choosing a site is how we can use our skills to provide a broad help to the community.” Steve Faber, regional manager for Ruppert’s Atlanta area, adds that the company is particularly excited by requests from employees, “because it’s going to have more impact.” In this case, Faber says he had made an announcement during a Wednesday morning meeting that the company was looking for a site that needed both donated ...