Connections

Issue 2 • Volume 3 • April 10

COMMUNITY

Tilcon’s Community Involvement Program Partners with Local Schools
By Karen Edgar, public relations manager

Students from Catherine A. Dwyer Elementary School and P.S. 20 join together for a photo at the Mt. Hope Quarry.

Tilcon's community involvement and superior education programs consist of partnering with several schools in our local communities. Conducting tours for grade schools, colleges and scout troops and hosting open houses are a big part of being a good corporate citizen at Tilcon.

Rebecca Guardino, quality control manager, Tilcon New Jersey, teaches youngsters about different types of rocks and minerals in coordination with earth science curriculum. The program allows the students to discuss the mining industry and how it affects their daily lives.

Many schools return year after year for tours and presentations. New Jersey Institute of Technology and the Pennsylvania College of Technology tour the Tilcon New Jersey, Mt. Hope location, and West Point Cadets tour the Tilcon New York, Haverstraw and Tomkins Cove quarries, annually.

Due to the close proximity of the Catherine A. Dwyer School to the Tilcon-Mt. Hope location, a strong relationship has formed, which has resulted in many team projects. One of the projects currently being discussed is decorating birdhouses for an Earth Day project at the school. The birdhouses will provide shelter for birds as part of an environmental stewardship program between Tilcon, Oldcastle Materials and Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring and enhancing wildlife habitats. WHC helps large landowners, particularly corporations, manage their unused lands in an ecologically sensitive manner.

Last year, Tilcon New Jersey and New York teamed up with the same local grade school to collect more than 1,700 new and gently used books through its "Support for Students" program, which focuses on assisting underfunded schools in New York and New Jersey with the purchase of school supplies that will enhance the education of the students. Employee and company matching donations also provided backpacks for elementary students in the Prospect Park School System near the Tilcon-Prospect Park Quarry location.

John Gramp, plant manager, Tilcon New Jersey, Prospect Park Quarry, presents new backpacks to the superintendent and secretary of Prospect Park Schools.

For the past three years, Tilcon has hosted quarry tours for Catherine A. Dwyer Elementary, along with P.S. 20 from Jersey City, N.J., as part of a yearlong pen pal exchange program. Initiated by the two school principals, the program is designed to teach the students about "RESPECT," an acronym that stands for Respecting Each Student’s Personality, Ethnicity, Community and Tradition.

In the past, Tilcon also has donated material for Dwyer's reading garden and helped finance solar-powered traffic signs for the road in front of the school.

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