Nearly $200,000 in HDR Foundation Grants Span U.S.
The HDR Foundation announced nine grants totaling $190,249, supporting nonprofits stretching from Vancouver, Washington, to Kansas City, Missouri, to Pine Plains, New York.
The foundation awards grants connected to HDR’s areas of expertise, with a focus on education, healthy communities and the environment. Each grant is sponsored by an HDR employee who volunteers with the nonprofit, including Luke Dowell, structural engineer-in-training, who serves as a lightboard operator and lighting designer for Magenta Theater.
“This grant for assisted listening devices means the world to our theater community,” Dowell said. “This opportunity empowers us to ensure everyone, regardless of hearing ability, can fully experience and enjoy the magic of live performances, fostering a creative family where we connect deeply through the transformative power of theater."
Iain Blair, an HDR transportation planning coordinator, sponsored a grant to renovate Kansas City Community Gardens’ headquarters into a greenhouse and community education space.
“Kansas City Community Gardens provides support for hundreds of community gardens and urban orchards across the city, which provide nutritional calories to communities that can be measured in millions of dollars’ worth of produce per year,” Blair said. “To know that HDR is supporting such an organization, who supports so many others, makes me incredibly proud to be an HDR employee.”
Chris LaTuso, HDR transportation market strategy director, volunteers monthly with Sky High Farm, an organization dedicated to ecological farming practices and an environmentally holistic, equity-focused approach to promoting food sovereignty.
“Sky High Farm represents so many principles that the HDR Foundation supports; environmental stewardship, local community support and helping those in need,” said LaTuso, who sponsored a grant for a livestock trailer to support regenerative farming practices that produce high-quality, culturally appropriate food access. “I’m thrilled the HDR Foundation has chosen to support Sky High Farm’s grant application and look forward to working with them to develop and expand such a valuable and necessary program.”
Read more about the latest grants.
About the HDR Foundation
The HDR Foundation provides grants to qualified organizations that align with HDR’s areas of expertise: education, healthy communities and environmental stewardship. As an employee-funded and employee-driven foundation, preference is given to organizations located in communities in which HDR employees live and work, and those with strong employee involvement. Since its inception, the HDR Foundation has provided more than $9 million in grants to over 350 organizations.
About HDR
HDR is a 100% employee-owned professional services firm. Founded over a century ago to bring electricity to a changing world, we are now a global company specializing in architecture, engineering, environmental and construction services. Our success in built and natural environments continues as we collaborate to solve our clients’ and communities’ most complex challenges.
