Salesforce announced today that its employees will be giving 10,000 hours to San Francisco public schools this year. The company is circling 20 schools through our Circle the Schools Program, which partners local technology companies with San Francisco public schools using an adopt-a-school model.
Salesforce joins about 30 other local companies who have committed to giving back to schools in San Francisco Unified School District. With today’s announcement, 52 of the City’s 117 public schools will have corporate partners.
Along with its employees’ time, Salesforce also announced the third year of a multi-year partnership to expand computer science opportunities in San Francisco schools. It is investing $6 million to drastically increase the technology curriculum and resources for San Francisco students — bringing the total three-year investment to nearly $14 million.
“San Francisco’s students deserve access to the very best public education,” said Suzanne DiBianca, president, Salesforce Foundation. “By increasing our financial commitment and doubling our employee volunteer hours, the Salesforce Foundation is dedicated to arming a generation of students with the skills to succeed in today’s world.”
Salesforce joined our Circle the Schools Program in March, partnered with Visitacion Valley Middle School. On April 30, a village worth of employees descended upon Visitacion Valley to support the school’s first Career Day.
Employees volunteered as career speakers, tech advisors and classroom assistants to teach the school’s sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students about the world of work.
Students learned about careers ranging from programming to poetry. Promising programmers in the school’s Coding Club learned from Salesforce programmers, and the school’s budding reporters, like Sela, captured the day’s events and interviewed guest speakers.
“Today, I had the chance to interview Parker Harris, the co-founder of Salesforce,” Sela reported. “He told me about how he met Marc Benioff in 1998, and how they started Salesforce together. But, what I found very interesting during our interview was that in middle school he thought he’d grow up to be a medical pathologist.”
Salesforce has adopted the following schools:
- Alice Fong Yu Alternative School
- Bessie Carmichael Elementary School
- Claire Lilienthal – Winfield Scott Elementary School
- William L. Cobb Elementary School
- James Denman Middle School
- Francisco Middle School
- Herbert Hoover Middle School
- George Washington High School
- Lawton Alternative School
- Marina Middle School
- Harvey Milk Civil Rights Elementary School
- Rosa Parks Elementary School
- Paul Revere School
- Presidio Middle School
- Roosevelt Middle School
- Sanchez Elementary School
- Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts
- Visitacion Valley Elementary School
- Visitacion Valley Middle School
- Willie L. Brown Jr. Middle School
Each school will be adopted by a Salesforce executive and employees who will participate in volunteer activities throughout the year, helping to reach 10,000 volunteer hours during the 2015-2016 school year. As a part of the 1-1-1 model of integrated philanthropy, Salesforce employees are granted six paid days off per year to volunteer.
Circle the Schools, launched by sf.citi, the San Francisco Education Fund, and the San Francisco Unified School District in September 2014, fosters long-term, organic relationships between technology companies and local schools. Employees of participating companies engage in volunteer activities focused around literacy at the elementary school level, STEM curricula in middle schools, and college and career readiness for high school students. The program supports the School District’s Vision 2025 plan, its blueprint for reimagining school to prepare all our students to succeed at school and in life.
Learn more about Circle the Schools on our website. Read more about Salesforce’s commitment to our schools in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article.
