Courtesy Tourism Cares
SACRAMENTO, California — More than 200 travel industry volunteers gathered in Sacramento on September 28 to revitalize a number of historic and culturally significant sites across the city and celebrate World Tourism Day.
Tourism Cares for Historic Sacramento brought travel industry professionals from more than 80 different companies from across the United States to help restore the travel experience at three sites significant to the city’s history as the starting point for the Gold Rush: Old Sacramento, Sutter’s Fort and the historic City Cemetery.
Volunteers used more than 150 gallons of paint and spread nearly 600 pounds of cement in the day’s work. Workers painted historic structures, rebuilt fences, archived more than 300 artifacts and planted more than a dozen trees. In all, more than 1,500 volunteer hours were donated to the city of Sacramento, amounting to more than $32,000 worth of value.
“We’ve been called ‘locusts with tools,’ and today was no different,” said Bruce Beckham, executive director and CEO of Tourism Cares. “It’s amazing the amount of work that these hardy souls accomplished. What’s amazing is that they take on work that they would pay people at home to do. Somehow, doing it for the common good is so much more fun and gratifying.”
Tourism Cares for Historic Sacramento is the 11th annual service project for Tourism Cares. As part of its mission, Tourism Cares brings the industry together to give back in two major projects each year — one in the spring and one in the fall. The spring of 2013 give-back event is scheduled for May 31, at Coney Island and Jamaica Bay in New York City. The fall program is slated for “America’s Home Town,” Plymouth, Massachusetts, September 26 and 27. For more information, visit
www.tourismcares.org/volunteer.
New York City chosen as site of Tourism Cares’ 10th anniversary service project
NEW YORK — Tourism Cares will return to New York City next May to mark the 10th anniversary of its volunteer tourism give-back projects, which began in the Big Apple with a cleanup project on Ellis Island in June 2003.
During the volunteer effort on May 31, hundreds of tourism industry professionals will partner with the staffs of NYC & Company and NYC Service to paint playground benches, light posts, water fountains and trash cans on Coney Island and participate in a dune preservation and beach clean-up project at Fort Tilden Beach in Jamaica Bay, Queens.
“We look forward to holding Tourism Cares’ 10th anniversary volunteer project here in New York City. The enhancements that are planned will benefit Coney Island, Jamaica Bay and the scores of future visitors who will visit our city in the years ahead,” said George Fertitta, NYC & Company’s CEO.
Tourism Cares will also sponsor a program at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massatuchets, September 26-27.
More than 200 volunteers took park in the latest Tourism Cares project September 29-30 in Sacramento, California, where they helped spruce up the Old Sacramento area, Sutter’s Fort, Sacramento’s Historic City Cemetery and Pioneer Park.
