This is the time of year when we like to send a special holiday gift to our valued customers and partners. But with the majority of people continuing to work from home, RPCS has decided to take a different approach to our holiday giving this season by helping those that have had an exceptionally difficult year.
In appreciation of our customers, we’ve made a significant donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a leading children’s hospital focused on treating the toughest childhood cancers and pediatric diseases.
The mission of St. Jude is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. It is St. Jude’s vision that no child is denied treatment based on race, religion, or a family’s ability to pay. The majority of St. Jude’s funding comes from individual contributions, and thanks to donations families will never receive a bill from St. Jude.
Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since it opened more than 50 years ago.RPCS’s donation in our customers’ honor will continue to help St. Jude lead the way the world understands, treats, and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
We hope this token of appreciation brings both our customers and patients of St. Jude joy as we celebrate the holidays and move into the New Year.
In honor of Giving Tuesday, RP Construction Services and non-profit Nurturing Minds Work to Bring e-Readers to the Solar-Powered SEGA Girls School in Tanzania
RP Construction Services, Inc. (RPCS) and Nurturing Minds are continuing their efforts on their campaign to bring e-Readers to the Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) school in Morogoro, Tanzania, this Giving Tuesday.
The SEGA school opened in 2008 to provide quality education and life skills for at-risk girls in Tanzania. SEGA provides secondary education and housing for over 270 girls in grades 7 through 11. In addition, 60 graduates live off-campus who are currently enrolled in continuing education programs supported by SEGA scholarships and SEGA’s “Modern Girl” community outreach program now gives another 450 girls in very remote villages the chance to learn skills and improve their future through weekly clubs facilitated by SEGA graduates and staff. Their mission is to educate and empower Tanzanian girls who are impoverished, marginalized, and in danger of becoming involved in exploitative forms of child labor.
Introducing e-Readers will provide the opportunity for students to become active learners through technology, and will be an added resource to fuel academic success. Through their joint campaign, RPCS and Nurturing Minds hope to supply 60 e-Readers to students to improve reading and vocabulary skills, and aid students in scoring higher on national exams, all while creating a brighter future for SEGA students.
“We have been blessed to get book donations over the years, but it is often challenging to transport them and get them to the school,” says Laura DeDominicis, Director of Nurturing Minds. “E-readers are a fabulous, cost effective way for Nurturing Minds to expand SEGA’s library.”
SEGA also instills environmental stewardship, and operates an environmentally sustainable off-the-grid campus that runs entirely on solar power. This provides a clean, renewable energy source which eliminates the dependency on unreliable nationally supplied electricity and provides a superior learning environment for students. The solar power will ultimately allow students to charge e-Readers and give them the ability to study at night.
Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world and only 17% of girls in Tanzania attend secondary school. Poverty forces many girls to drop out of school, resulting in early marriage and teen pregnancy. With a 97% pass rate and a 96% retention rate, a quality education provided by SEGA leads to continuing education, future employment, and ultimately an increased standard of living which includes improved healthcare, food security, and housing. Just one extra year of secondary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 15 to 25 percent.
SEGA uses a holistic approach to education which includes an academically challenging Tanzanian curriculum, entrepreneurship development, and a comprehensive life skills and leadership program. In addition, the school teaches computer technology and entrepreneurship and provides the girls with counseling, business training, and healthcare. It is now ranked in the top 20% of small secondary schools in Tanzania.
“This campaign is simple,” says RPCS Founder Eb Russell. “It’s about those 270 girls. You give and their lives change forever.”
RP Construction Services, Inc. designs and builds ground mount solar projects. With over 360 projects and nearly 1GW completed or under construction throughout the United States, RPCS provides full turnkey service and support for the industry’s most bankable and reliable tracker, the Array Technologies DuraTrack® HZ v3 single-axis tracker, including site layout optimization, ancillary engineering services, tracker supply, foundation post procurement, and complete mechanical installation. For more information about RPCS, please visit rpcs.com or call us at 831.620.2188.
Nurturing Minds provides financial and technical support to programs improving access to quality education for girls in Tanzania, with a particular emphasis on girls who are poor, marginalized, and at risk of becoming involved in exploitative forms of child labor. Currently, Nurturing Minds is supporting Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) and its development of a girls’ secondary boarding school in Morogoro, Tanzania. For more information, please visit www.nurturingmindsinafrica.org
MONTEREY, Calif. November 21, 2019 – RP Construction Services, Inc. (RPCS) announced last week their contribution of $2,500 to the Youth Sports Alliance to support a cause close to their company.
Established in 2002 as a legacy to the Winter Olympic Games, the Youth Sports Alliance spearheads a community-wide effort to encourage first through ninth graders’ participation in sport programs through competitive sport teams and after-school programs.
RPCS’s Jay Miles as the keynote speaker at the YSA Jans Winter Welcome fundraiser, sharing his daughter Hadley’s (right) story about “The Meaning of Sport.” The fundraiser raised of $200,000.
YSA programs aim to keep kids active and engaged, and away from their screens, while promoting good sportsmanship and healthy lifestyles through participation, education, and competition, the alliance says. On a more personal level, the alliance supports its mission by fostering confidence and self-esteem in youths, demonstrating the lifelong benefits of fitness to participants, and learning the true meaning of S.P.O.R.T., the organization’s core values: Sportsmanship, Perseverance, Optimism, Respect, and Teamwork.
The efforts of the YSA’s Park City, Utah, chapter contribute to a cause close to RPCS. The company became involved through longtime RPCS Sales Director Jay Miles, whose daughter Hadley was enrolled in a winter sports program while undergoing treatment for Leukemia.
“Thank you, RPCS, for supporting YSA,” says Jay. “Hadley’s figure skating club coaches and teammates were invaluable in helping Hadley battle her cancer diagnosis last year. From visiting in the hospital, cutting and donating hair to organizations that help make wigs for cancer patients, raising money, and general support helped keep my daughter’s fighting spirit alive. When facing a health scare like we have, you realize sport is much more than competition. Sport is about living healthy, providing a support system and friendship, and YSA is helping kids get involved in the early formidable years for our community youth.”
Figure skating, through resources provided by YSA, became an important outlet for Hadley.
“I am so grateful for the support my coaches and teammates have given me while in treatment,” says Hadley. “When I was too sick to skate, they would call or visit. When I was well enough to visit the rink, my club gave me an outlet to forget about all the hospital visits and chemo treatments. It was the escape I needed and made the time go by easier.”
To learn more about how you can contribute to the Youth Sports Alliance, please visit www.ysaparkcity.org
RPCS is now Ampacity
Momentum is everything in clean energy. And we’re accelerating the transition with expanded capabilities and new possibilities. So we’re excited to announce a new name and a new look. We’re still the same company you know and love, but better positioned to expedite clean energy—and your impact. Meet Ampacity. Let’s put your project in motion.