December 19,
2011 officially marks our 100th birthday.
Outlined below are the highlights of a busy year, filled
with company and community spirit.
Winter, 2011
- The Centennial website is launched, documenting our
100-year history of delivering safe, affordable and reliable
natural gas to more than 400 communities across Ontario.
- Union Gas announced that we would be giving 100 special
grants of $1,000 to non-profit and community organizations
across the province that focused on the environment,
community safety, and education.
Spring, 2011
- Union Gas held a Centennial Earth Week Challenge across the
company.
- Union Gas kicked off a very special Centennial Challenge.
Every year, our employees and retirees roll up their sleeves
and donate thousands of hours to complete projects for
community organizations across the province through a
special program we call Helping Hands in Action.
Volunteers do everything from planting trees, installing
safety coat hooks in classrooms, painting and refurbishing
office areas and more. This May,
the goal was special: To complete 100 projects in 100 days.
And Union Gas volunteers set to the task with the strong
community spirit for which they are justly known.
- To cap off a spring of giving, we named the recipients of
our 100 Centennial Community grants, which included
community and non-profit groups from Ottawa to Thunder Bay
to Windsor.
Summer, 2011
- Union Gas announced the first of 10 Signature Centennial
grants of $10,000 was being awarded to the Trees Ontario
Foundation to help plant 3,333 trees in the London and
Sarnia areas.
- One day before the first official day of summer – June 20 –
Union Gas made a major Centennial announcement: a $100,000
Signature Grant to the Lower Thames Valley Conservation
Authority to fund new biodiversity education, conservation
and restoration programs and an expanded community trees
initiative.
- We rounded out June with two more Centennial
celebrations at our district offices in Thunder Bay and
Waterloo – and two more Signature grants to support a
green roof program and an environmental education
program.
- Our district office in Burlington
held its Centennial celebration, highlighted by the
presentation of a Signature grant to Royal Botanical
Gardens, recognized as a leader in sustainable gardening,
ecological restoration and plant preservation.
- Union Gas celebrated the great news that not only had we
met the Helping Hands in Action challenge we had set for
ourselves, we surpassed it, completing 111 projects in 100
days (we are currently at 158 projects total year to date).
- In late August, we marked “back to school” with a Signature
grant to the Essex Region
Conservation Foundation to support its Nature in
Education program, a hands-on study course that helps
students learn about habitats, water and wildlife using
environmental science-based studies.
- Union Gas awarded a $10,000 grant to the University of
Waterloo’s Institute for Sustainable Energy for a research
project to expand the concept of a “smart grid” beyond
electricity.
Fall, 2011
- We began the Fall season by celebrating
two Signature grants with decidedly educational bents.
Under the watchful eyes of a Grade 3/4 class at Dawn-Euphemia
School, Dill and Dave Simpson, director of storage and
transmission operations for Union Gas, presented a $10,000
grant to the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority for its
2012 Spring Water Awareness Program, which will teach
elementary school students about the dangers of the spring
thaw.
- We began October with the exciting news we had been named
to the top of the class, making the list of Canada’s Top 100
Employers for the second year running – the perfect icing on
our Centennial cake.
- Turning back to nature once again, we awarded Centennials
grants to support a 100,000 Tree Campaign in the Sudbury
area, a new forest trail in Timmins and two water
conservation programs in eastern Ontario.
- On Oct. 29, Union Gas employees and their families brought
their garden gloves, shovels and their community spirit to a
Centennial tree planting event in partnership with our
$100,000 grant recipient, the Lower Thames Conservation
Authority. Under a bright autumn sky, volunteers helped to plant 100
coniferous trees that will form a windbreak for future
plantings at the Merlin
Conservation Area in Chatham-Kent, once again demonstrating
an outstanding commitment to give back to the communities we
serve.
As the year
draws to a close we look back fondly on twelve months of
celebration while looking forward to a bright and brilliant
future!
