Packs of people in yellow shirts are seen throughout the Lehigh Valley Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Their mission? Some elbow grease with a side of caring.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of the 33rd United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley\u2019s Day of Caring.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe will have 1700 volunteers from 70 companies at 76 different sites and nonprofit organizations all across Lehigh, Carbon, and Northampton counties,” said Laura McHugh, chief engagement officer with the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the first year this event has been broken up into two days with volunteers taking action on Tuesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our responsibility to get back out and do something to help lift others up in our community,” said Orville Trout, the executive vice president of human resources at Crayola.<\/p>\n Presented by Crayola, a crew from the company was tasked with beautifying an outdoor space at Paxinosa Elementary, while others worked with tools they\u2019re pretty familiar with inside.<\/p>\n \u201cMy task, I\u2019m going to be doing a little painting,” Trout added.<\/p>\n Creating and fixing up murals: you can say they\u2019re passion projects.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorite days of the year,” said longtime volunteer, Elaine Veldez.<\/p>\n Bridging the gap between organizations, these events allow the volunteers to handle some tasks on to-do lists, such as cleaning up the garden bed at Cheston Elementary.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of these little projects that build up over time, taking that off of their plates, allows them to be more effective in what they do for the kids,” said Amy Bucher, the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley Campaign Chair.<\/p>\n While the projects wrap up on Thursday, it\u2019s only igniting the spark for giving back all year long with the United Way.<\/p>\n \u201c8800 hours are being volunteered with just these two days so if all of us does a little bit, boy we can have a big impact on the valley,” explained Rick Bucher, the president and CEO of Victaulic and also the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley Campaign Chair.<\/p>\n United Way officials say despite the heavy to-do list for day of caring, they’ve topped out in volunteers for Tuesday and Thursday\u2019s events.<\/p>\n