SLIDESHOW: Dimension Data Employees Revitalize Barbieri Elementary Playground

Yesterday, Dimension Data employees, in conjunction with City Year, spent the day at Barbieri Elementary School in Framingham and 10 other schools across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as part of community service day.

About four dozen Dimension Data employees spent the day at Barbieri Elementary creating garden beds, refurbishing the kickball field, painting basketball lines & playground graphics and creating a map of the United States.

Barbieri was selected as more than 55 percent of the 660 students at the kindergarten through grade 5 students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. The school is also home to the Framingham Public School district’s two-way bilingual program, in which all students learn both English and Spanish.

The mission of Barbieri School is to prepare the students to become successful global citizens. Challenging them to reach their academic potential and teach them the value of cultural, economic and learning differences, with an emphasis on bilingualism and biliteracy.

This was the seventh consecutive year, Dimension Data employees helped City Year with the maintenance of school properties, including painting, building and other upkeep that benefits local schools and community members.

“Our corporate social responsibility program, Heads, Hearts and Hands, spans the breadth of our global business, involving 58 countries in five regions,” said Mark Slaga, CEO of Dimension Data Americas, in a written statement. “Our corporate values define who we are as an organization, and in 2014, more than 25,000 Dimension Data employees got involved in a variety of causes that made a tremendous difference and we are looking to do even better this year.”

Barbieri was the only Massachusetts school employees donated their time to yesterday, May 21. Some of the other schools were in Charlotte, NC, Chicago, IL, Roswell, GA, Raleigh, NC, San Jose, CA, Washington, DC, and even a school in Mexico and Toronto, Canada.

Dimension Data’s Heads, Hearts and Hands program enables the company to share resources globally and work together with employees across three main areas: social issues, environmental issues and ethics and governance.

As part of the program, Dimension Data employees receive eight hours of paid time off annually to give back to the charities of their choice.

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Photos courtesy of Barbieri PTO President Beth Goldfarb