News

During the last Our Promise campaign, I elected to contribute through a monthly deduction to the United Service Organizations (USO).  For those of you that don’t know, the mission of the USO is to “strengthen America’s military service members by keeping them connected to family, home and country, throughout their service to the nation”.  Today, USO facilities can be found in airports and near American military bases around the world.  Additional information regarding the USO can be found at: https://www.uso.org/about

Guests from the public and nonprofit sectors came together on August 30 at the State Capitol to kick off the 60th anniversary of the Our Promise giving campaign! State employees were able to visit with many participating nonprofits, hear from statewide elected officials, plus more!

Our Promise Loaned Executive and long time supporter of the campaign, Danielle Gist, was recently reminded of the good in our community.

To mark a diamond jubilee of charitable giving, California’s Our Promise organization announced today its plans for a multimillion-dollar fundraising campaign as part of an annual commitment to its network of non-profits.  Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work, has provided a single charitable fund-raising drive in the State community since its inception in 1957.  To celebrate its 60th anniversary, the organization plans to rally its current and retired employee community to raise $6.4 million in its upcoming campaign.

Are you passionate about giving back to your community and raising funds for the many nonprofits in need? If so, we need you!

Our Promise Loaned Executives act as full-time account managers during this state-mandated charitable drive. There are many benefits to your department/division for loaning an executive including strengthening external relations with other state departments/divisions and increasing leadership skills. Not to mention all the benefits to you the employee who is able to create networking opportunities, increase leadership ability, and have a deeper insight into the community’s needs.　

Thank you for attending the 2016 Our Promise Thank You Breakfast! We appreciate everything you do to make the Our Promise campaign a huge success.

The event honored our committed and hard-working department and agency Chairs, Vice Chairs and other campaign volunteers, who worked to spread the word about the opportunity to give back, and the 32,000 state employees who contributed to Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work.

Bari Schlesinger was once unable to pick up items that she dropped on the floor. She once relied on others to open doors. She once feared going places alone. 

Thanks to the help of Canine Companions for Independence, Bari no longer strains herself to retrieve dropped items, she doesn’t need to wait for strangers to come along and open doors, and gone are the days of anxiety and doubt. Bari is now a self-assured and independent individual with her wonderful Canine Companions assistance dog, Axel III, provided to her free of charge.

When John Albarran lost his sight to glaucoma, he quickly figured out how to move forward in his life. By the age of 17, before he had graduated from high school, Albarran was a Guide Dogs of America graduate. He is currently partnered with his fourth dog from the school, a female yellow Labrador Retriever named Julep.

Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work is a campaign that allows employees to give to a variety of charitable organizations that are vitally important to the community. I am a member and in great support of Our Promise because I have had five kidney transplants.