Company News Room

Once again, we greet the long-awaited Alaska Spring with light hearts and visions of fun activities in the great outdoors.  Unfortunately, we are often greeted in return with streets and neighborhoods that have unsightly amounts of trash, collected in ruts and corners, after a long winter.  Please join us and many others like us in helping clean up a corner in your community.  May 1-8, 2010 is the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Citywide Clean Up event.  Pick up some bright orange bags at a Burger King or Red Robin in Anchorage, and plan on a fun pick up event with your friends and neighbors.  It's a fun way to get kids outside as well, and you can have fun explaining the emerging flora and fauna around you.

If you're interested in learning more, just go to anchoragechamber.org  You can register there online to let them know where you'll be cleaning up, and you can even upload fun photos to adn.com to let others know of your exploits.  One fun idea is to get your orange bags, and put one on the back of your office chair to highlight your participation in this year's event; thanks to Ginger in Providence Alaska Medical Center's Communication and Marketing Department for this!

If you'd like to join a fun crew that is planning to venture out in the vicinity of Providence Hospital and Goose Lake/UAA, we'd love to have you.  This will be our fourth annual effort since we began in 2007.  Our plan is to meet outside Providence Imaging Center's Anchorage location, at 3340 Providence Drive, at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 6.  Simply give Nathan a call at 212-6032 if you'd like to find out more.  We'll supply the bags and snacks if you supply the muscles; all ages are welcome.  Additionally, there will be a group heading out at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 5, at Annex Building 7 (just follow the signs near Providence Hospital), organized by Kathleen Barrows.  Call her at 212-4944 to sign up there.

Good to know per Kathleen (and I agree!):  May 1,2 and 8 are Free Dump Days at the Anchorage Regional Landfill, Anchorage Central Transfer Station and Girdwood Transfer Station; fees are waived for trash disposal for all residents.  If you participate in a clean up event, remember to wear jeans and sturdy shoes or boots.  Local hardware stores also sell some "grabbers", as I call them, which make you feel like a pro, and save your back.

Have fun, and maybe we'll see you out there somewhere!

Caption:  Here are a few of our volunteers from Clean Up Day (l-r):  Nathan Switzer, Elliott Switzer, Mindy Higginson, Noah Switzer, and Shelley Coolidge (photographer is Rebecca Coolidge, ACVB, who also volunteered).  Not pictured:  Paulette Compton and Teri Inch.

Many thanks to the intrepid volunteers who showed up this past Saturday to clean up around Goose Lake Park, UAA, and nearby bike trails for our annual Providence Imaging Center Clean Up Day.  As usual, there was quite a bit of trash, so there was no lack of work during the roughly three hours we were out.  We enjoyed glorious weather, so extra kudos to our volunteers for spending time with us.  They included:

Mindy Higginson (PET-CT)

Paulette Compton (Clinical Manager)

Shelley Coolidge (Nurse)

Rebecca Coolidge (Shelley's eldest daughter)

Teri Inch (Applications Analyst)

We each collected at least one bag of trash, which will be picked up by Municipal workers.  While we were out, we saw several people enjoying the beach play area and park, as well as several bicyclists, runners and walkers.  There was also a group of treasure hunters with metal detectors (one man's trash is another man's treasure!), who were "sweeping" the area.  We were finding a lot more "treasure" than they were!

Many thanks to each volunteer for helping make our environment prettier.  Thanks also to Tom Schmidt in Grounds, who lent us the "grabbers", so we didn't have to bend over so much, and get our hands as dirty (I'll return those today, by the way)!