Lonza Water Treatment personnel recently teamed up with professional pool dealers from North America on a PEACH (People Extending A Caring Hand) project to repair and refurbish an elementary school in rural Costa Rica, equipping it with five new computers and constructing a new playground.
This is the fourth PEACH project completed since 2012; prior projects involved fixing up schools in Mexico, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
The PEACH project at the ESCUELA – Gil Tablada Corea Elementary School, involved 400 hours of "sweat equity" and $25,000 for new computers and other equipment. In addition, the Lonza volunteers brought school supplies such as notebooks, pens, backpacks and drawing materials for donation to the school.
The work involved painting three classrooms and the exterior of six buildings, improving the landscaping in front of the school, remodeling one building that will serve as a library/computer center, remodeling the old cafeteria for use with special needs students, providing book shelving for the library as well as school desks and computers and installing a new playground.
"The goal of our PEACH projects is to give Lonza customers and employees the opportunity to improve the lives of others and in doing so to strengthen the ties between us," explained project manager Jerry Pierrottie, manager of environment, health and safety for Lonza Water Treatment.
The work by these volunteers occurred during the annual winter gathering of professional pool dealers who sell Lonza swimming pool and spa treatment products. The meeting in Costa Rica included 288 U.S. pool dealer representatives and 92 from Canada.
