United Way Day of Caring

Accounting. It's a career that I love, but I must say, when I chose this field there was one thing that was holding me back. Accountants aren't changing the world, they don't impact people's lives or make a difference. Did I really want to be a part of something that didn't include a big chunk of the core values in my life?

Well as you know, I followed my heart and I am now an Accountant. But I was wrong about one thing, we are making a difference. No, completing a corporate tax return or checking to see if accounts receivable is what it is supposed to be does not save a child's life or impact the world in some dramatic way. But what I learned is, that as a firm, we can make a difference!

PwC is an international firm employing 163,000 people. Every year, each employee is allowed ten working hours to volunteer in the community. Now lets look at the math here...

• PwC employees at a MINIMUM (10 hours is what we are given, but we are encouraged to do more) spend 1,630,000 HOURS helping the community EVERY YEAR

• There are 8,670 hours in one year

This is equivalent to my firm hiring 188 people year round 24 hours a day to make our communities a better place. Pretty awesome.

I am sure you want me to get to the point. Today was the United Way Day of Caring. Several of my co-workers and I spent the day volunteering at a home for people with disabilities. The awesome part about this program is that it allows these individuals to live a semi-independent lifestyle. There is care provided for them during the day as needed, but at night, they are free to go off to their own bedrooms, hang out and play the Nintendo Wii in their living room, or enjoy the great outdoors in their backyard.

My job today was to paint. If you know me, which obviously this organization didn't, you would never put a paint brush in my hands. I got paint pretty much every where except for the walls. But in the end, it turned out pretty good :) Look at that beautiful wall!