Company to Award $250 Scholarships to Visiting
Students
Kansas City, Mo. (June 6, 2008) – Black & Veatch is hosting its Second
Annual “Learn-in Day” for the Kansas City Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) crew
on June 12 that includes interactive sessions on rain gardens and water
engineering. Black & Veatch will award $250 scholarships to each of the
twelve 16- to 18-year-olds participating in the “Learn-in Day” who complete the
YCC program this summer.
The funding for the scholarships will come from a grant from the Building
a World of Difference® Foundation to the Missouri Conservation
Heritage Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Missouri Department of
Conservation, which is a co-sponsor of the program with the Full Employment
Council. The YCC program provides summer projects for inner-city and minority
youth that stress the importance of environmental conservation and
research.
“We’re glad that we can again host these young people as they visit the
first corporate rain garden in Kansas City,” said Dan McCarthy, President and
CEO of Black & Veatch’s water business. “The interactive sessions they’ll
take part in during the day will help introduce them to several water
engineering topics and hopefully encourage them to consider environmental
careers when they go to college.”
The YCC members and their sponsors will participate in four interactive
water engineering sessions on June 12 at the company’s 8400 Ward Parkway
office:
- Water Supply – Where does our water come from and how do we protect
it?
- Stormwater – How can we beneficially reuse stormwater to help prevent
flooding and improve water quality, and what role do rain gardens play?
- Drinking Water – Why is tap water safer than bottled and so much less
expensive?
- Wastewater – What does it take to return water to the environment with
better quality than when we harvested it?
The day’s activities will include taste tests, environmental puzzles, water
engineering activities, a tour of the rain garden and a community service
project titled “Rain Garden in a Bag.” For the project, participants will make
clay seed balls with a special seed mixture for native plants in the Kansas
City area.
“We’re encouraging the students to ‘plant the seeds of community
involvement’ by taking part in this project,” McCarthy explained. “The bags
will then be distributed to nonprofit organizations to enable them to plant
their own rain gardens throughout the city.”
Along with the $250 scholarship, each YCC member will receive educational
materials and an mp3 music player that will be loaded with environmentally
related songs. McCarthy will award the scholarships during a scholarship
ceremony at noon; guests from local government and civic organizations have
also been invited.
Black & Veatch has partnered with Hallmark Cards, Inc., on this youth
program for two years. On June 10, the YCC members will visit Hallmark’s
headquarters in Kansas City to see an example of the recycling loop in action.
Hallmark composts cafeteria food waste through Missouri Organic, and the
resulting compost is used as fertilizer on Hallmark’s rain garden. The group
also will tour the Missouri Organic facilities on June 10.
Rain gardens are sunken areas planted with native perennials that are
specially designed to collect stormwater runoff and return it to the ground
naturally and safely. According to recent research, properly designed rain
gardens can effectively trap and retain a high percentage of common pollutants
in urban storm runoff, which is designed to improve water quality.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is a leading global engineering, consulting and construction
company specializing in infrastructure development in energy, water,
telecommunications, management consulting, federal and environmental markets.
Founded in 1915, Black & Veatch develops tailored infrastructure solutions
that meet clients’ needs and provide sustainable benefits. Solutions are
provided from the broad line of service expertise available within Black &
Veatch, including conceptual and preliminary engineering services, engineering
design, procurement, construction, financial management, asset management,
program management, construction management, environmental, security design and
consulting, management consulting and infrastructure planning. With $3.2
billion in revenue, the employee-owned company has more than 100 offices
worldwide and has completed projects in more than 100 countries on six
continents. The company’s Web site address is www.bv.com.
Black & Veatch’s global water business provides innovative,
technology-based solutions to utilities, governments and industries worldwide.
Local project teams work with multinational water and wastewater treatment
process experts to address site-specific challenges through a broad range of
consulting, study, planning, design, design-build and construction management
services. The company’s Web site address is www.bv.com.
Media Contact:
George Minter
(913) 458-8001
minterga@bv.com
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