Barberton plant receives Pillar Award for Community Service

An instrumentation engineer from the Barberton plant tutors students at Highland Middle School's After School Kids (ASK) program.

January 6, 2006 - PPG’s Barberton, Ohio, chemicals plant has earned a Pillar Award for Community Service.

The award, which “honors businesses dedicated to making Northeast Ohio a better place to live,” is cosponsored by SmartBusiness magazine, Cleveland edition, and Medical Mutual of Ohio.

According to the magazine’s December edition, “When they’re not manufacturing the optical materials, designed silicas or fine chemicals found in products such as corrective lenses, automobile tires and store loyalty cards, many (Barberton) employees can be found volunteering as tutors and mentors at Highland Middle School or supporting dozens of other community projects and organizations.”

Earning the Pillar Award is a “great source of pride for all of us,” according to Rich Bauer, plant manager. The plant’s community service efforts, he said, revolve around volunteer and financial support in the areas of education, human services, culture and the arts, as well as civic and community affairs.

Many of those efforts have been supported by the PPG Industries Foundation’s Grant Incentives for Volunteerism by PPG Employees (GIVE) program. Last year, more than $18,000 in statewide grants and $3,000 in local grants were provided to support Barberton employees’ volunteer efforts.

In addition, over the past year, the Barberton plant has:

• Provided two high school students with $6,000 scholarships from the PPG Industries Foundation;
   
• Sponsored the University of Akron’s summer camp for seventh- and eighth-grade girls “to help dispel myths that these are male-dominated fields,” Bauer said;
   
• Entered a long-term agreement with MetroParks, seving Summit County, to enable construction of a bike and hike trail on four miles of plant property; and
   
• Made corporate contributions to the United Way of Summit County, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Foundation, Ronald McDonald House of Akron, and local public libraries.

In addition, this year marked the 20th anniversary of the plant’s Lime Lake Reclamation Project, a voluntary initiative to reclaim land once used to support manufacturing operations at the plant.

“Our employees are devoted to their community, especially the children,” Bauer said. “We live, work and raise our families here. We have an ongoing commitment to actively promote science and technology to area students, many who may become future community leaders and even PPG employees. We take our community leadership responsibilities seriously.”