Inside the Revolution

This year, we were tasked with beautifying the lowest-performing school in LAUSD, all just in a day. There were a plethora of projects to complete, but no project is too big for Revolution. As we walked the grounds of the campus, it was apparent that each of us inherently have a strong social mission…it wasn’t just a company motto. The hours, sweat, hard work and commitment to giving back are what make each of us Revolutionaries. It was awesome to see 150 orange bodies working tirelessly to create a campus that come Fall, students would be proud to call it their own. We are so thrilled to have such amazing teams committed to giving back and we are happy to say that the annual service project will continue to be a very important part of company-wide retreat.

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– Ramit and Jake

PHOTOS AND TEAM REPORTS

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Team 1 – Auditorium Entrance Landscaping

Team 1 was tasked with making the entrance to the auditorium look fantastic. This meant ripping up dry sod down both sides of the entry way and shoveling out holes for the plants. Once we brought those over and got that in, and there was a brief intermission for a dance party and cartwheel contest, we cleaned up and added the mulch. Team 1 was aptly named, as we finished our job right before the lunch bell rang!

After lunch, the team split up to help with everyone else’s projects including basketball court painting, the world, and organizing classrooms to make sure that the day was a success. Special shout out to Javier, the landscape architect. Without him, we just would have ripped up grass…and probably not even that well).

Team Leaders: Chris H. & Sean O.

Team Members: Ben B., Carolyn W., Elizabeth K., Erin M., Joe R., Keith L., Lauren C., Maren J., Mark G., Mike N., Nichole L., Ross C., Sal M., John M.

Team 2 – Boy’s P.E. Court

Team 2 transformed a dingy blacktop into a Baller’s hoop dream in just a few hours! With the stabilizing force of the hulkish Silver, Jeremy scaled the ladder to hang new nets, while Mary, Falina, Irvin, Kristen, Kylee, Paige, and Tara took the court by storm, taping all the lines in preparation for rejuvenating the surface to bright yellow, straight-lined perfection. Ronnie was a wizard with the paint machine- our foreman Mario might have hired him if he wasn’t from Bahston! The court was complete. Where there was once faded outlines, now stood shiny new ones, and the kids can pull up and drain it from 3 point land through a shiny new net! The real effort, however, came in the latter half of the day, when the team rallied to stencil out over 200 numbers on the side of the blacktop where students will stand for PE roll call for years to come. Motivated by Mary’s perseverant leadership, the team was determined to finish the job. The stencils barely survived the usage, but by the end of the day, the crisp new lines on the ground, numbers on the side, and the nets up above called out one clear and simple message- Balllllin! (people still say that)

Team Leaders: Jeremy B. and Mary A.

Team members: Falina L., Irvin C., Kristen B., Kylee L., Paige S., Ronnie J., Silver M., Tara D.

Team 3 – Multi-Purpose Room Landscaping

Team three had a rockin’ good time planting 88 small plants to beautify a walkway area. At first, we were intimidated by the rock hard dirt we had to break up, but Peter M. and Adam B. dominated the pick ax to get things going. From then on, we were on fire, completing everything a few hours early. This enabled us to help other teams. Bri A., Carrie O. and Priya D. were the green thumbs of the group. Shandy H. provided our tunes and worked intensely digging and planting with Atsuya T., Laura G. and Maureen H. Our fearless leader Ben N. made sure we were doing everything right on a minute by minute basis J Most important, Madi and Simone N. ripped it up digging and planting with us. I (Bill) just tried not to get in the way. GO TEAM THREE.

Team Leader: Bill F. & Ben N.

Team Members: Adam B., Atsuya T., Briana A., Carrie O., Jane G., Laura G., Priya D., Shandy H., Maureen H.

Team 4 – 9^th Grade Academy Landscaping

Team 4 was in charge of beautifying the 9^th Grade Academy entrance. As a freshman having some welcoming flowers and shrubs greet you at the door can be very soothing for what is often an anxiety ridden first day of high school. Consequently, Team 4 poured their blood, sweat, and tears into digging holes, shoveling soil, and mulching the flower beds. Marc’s love for landscaping was apparent as he switched to come join our team and the boyish nature came out of Rene as he swung the axe with excitement! At the last moment, our consultant informed us we had 25 more flowers to plant in the final 15 minutes of the day. Fearlessly, the team raced to the finish and completed the task as true Revolutionaries.

Team Leader: Rene V. & Liz L.

Team Members: Ben N., Charlie A., Greg R., June M., Nick G., Peter T., Ryan C., Sachi P., Sajjad K., Tom H., Claudette G.

Team 5 – Girl’s Recreation Area

Our team’s goal was to revitalize Jordan High Schools play areas for the students and to bring back to life the Basketball and Volleyball play areas. The Day started out with a group of 11 strong, empowered and ready to get dirty Revolutionaries. On first sight our group believed the challenge would be easily conquered within a few hours. An hour into our assignment we knew we would need some major reinforcements. In 9 hours our team of 11 turned into a necessary team of 60, we hung new volleyball nets, new basketball nets, cleaned the area, tapped and PAINTED all new court lines. At the end of the day we revitalized the play area and summer school students hanging out immediately began to play some one-on-one! Big Up’s to Alex M., Bill M., Dianne D., Karin T., Ryan M., Steve S., Patrick M., Robin S., Laura L. who were dedicated to the goal at hand, left the day exhausted and with some really dirty knees!

Team Leader: Marisela A. & Nichole S.

Team Members: Alex M., Bill M., Dianne D., Karin T., Ryan M., Steve S., Patrick M., Robin S., Laura L.

Team 6 – World Map

Revolutionizing the World in every language

“Yo soy la Revolucion!” – “I am the Revolution!” – “Je suis la Révolution!” – “أنا الثورة!” – “Kasama ko ang Revolution!” – “Ich bin die Revolution!” – “私は革命だ”

The World Map Group transformed what most of us remember from our childhoods as plain and boring concrete into an amazing colorful and learning experience.

We spent the first ½ of the day taping down and stenciling a 20×36 world map. We took 20 brushes and white paint and dotted what must have been close to 2500 dots. Once peeling away our paper outline, we filled in each country with a different color.

With the intricacy of detail needed to execute this correctly, we had the most ideal team to make it happen….

“I’ve done this before” Angel provided her knowledge of best practices that helped us make the key tactical decisions.

“My cute little bump doesn’t stop me” Maryanne took the lead in getting North America stenciled while “I can connect any set of dots in the shape of a country” Sandy transformed the stencil into a continent.

Europe would have had significantly fewer countries without the teamwork of “Able to name every single country” Tavis and “I don’t trust this map” Monica.

“I’m not afraid of Russia” June led the completion of the largest country on the map.

“This is my first day on the job” Heather jumped right in as the team player she is, no-one would’ve known this was her first week with Revolution!

“Hawaii should be the size of New York” Sean provided the team with some much needed artistic talent.

“No detail is too small” Nicole, executed perfect lines bordering all of North America. “I’ll help the group in need” Willy, ventured over to Heather’s team to help with inspirational words on a wall.

“I’m not leaving until every brush gets washed” Zeenat, had to rush back to the office to answer calls but wanted to contribute 100% before her departure.

“Leave no piece of gravel unpainted” Deila and “The only job worth doing is a job well done” Joy transformed a good enough map into a great piece of art.

Team Leader: Claire C. & Kelly T.

Team Members: Angel L., Heather D., Joy C., Marc T., Maryanne V., Nicole G., Monica M., Sandy P., Sean S., Tavis M., Willy F., Zeenat B., Angel L.

Team 7 – Picnic Tables

Team Leader: Brad V. & Drew Y.

Team 7 had a very straight forward goal: to build, prime, paint, and place picnic tables for the incoming students. At the beginning of the day we quickly assigned tasks that needed to be completed and from there it was smooth sailing on execution — at least for most of us, some of us gave several demonstrations on how not to assemble a table…

Team Members: Claire S., Danny G., Stephanie R., Gregg M., James N., Jeff K., Josh F., Kris F., Lisa B., Marisa L., Jay M., Marty L., Stacy B., Troy S., Mary R., Jacqueline C.

Team 8 – Jordan Entrance Landscaping

Team 8 had a wonderful opportunity to give the Jordan High students their first impression of a rejuvenated school campus. Our goal was to beautify the school entrance walk way! The team wasted no time as Amy, Benn, Bill, Greg, Josh, Dustin, Chris and Earl each grabbed a shovel and jumped into the task of removing 18 dying rose bushes. With the help of Amy’s mad Spanish translation skills, Team 8 picked up tips for avoiding a thorny morning from the veteran landscape consultant assisting the team. After making quick work of de-rose-ing the walkway, the team tackled the task of moving 60 small potted shrubs from the back of the school, 200 yards to the font of the school. Without pause, we pushed through and dug 50 holes for the shrubs. After a quick lesson in horticulture, the team had the shrubs precisely aligned with the sun and planted before lunch!

Team 8’s afternoon could be summed up in one word. Mulch. Team members assisted in filling, moving, dumping, and spreading 20 barrels of mulch in locations all over the school grounds. The mulch was a perfect finishing touch to all the landscaping projects. As Chief Marketing Officer, and team 8 member Chris put it, “Wow, this looks great.”

Team Leader: Chris S. & Earl W.

Team Members: Amy G., Benn P., Bill T., Gail G., Greg E., Janvika S., Josh S., Mike F., Muhammad M., Dustin F., Michael G.

Team 9 – Campus & Classroom Clean-up

Team 9, led by Stacy, took on the daunting task of campus and classroom clean-up. With a pack on her back to cart supplies, the awesome team 9 headed first to the fields and bleachers to haul away the small and large garbage in the way of painting and repair projects as well as general debris. Tires, broken furniture, gnarled metal beams, incendiary devices and various smaller trash were whisked away by Jill N., Elli B., and Jon M.. Rodents were left homeless as Stacy and Jill removed a growing ecosystem of composting papers and packaging. When the football field, track, basketball, tennis, volleyball courts and baseball diamond glistened, the team headed to the science building where 18 classrooms were prepared for students by Mike G., Katie W. and Jill N., with numerous reinforcements as others became available. Floors were swept, tables cleaned, bulletin boards stripped and ready for new backing, books organized and stacked, science materials stored properly, papers stored and trash disposed. This small and mighty team filled a dumpster over the course of the day, but what is more, in the midst of the frenetic activity, Mike took a call, making a sale for Ivy Insiders, hitting a major revenue milestone. Now THAT’s revolutionary.

Team Leaders: Stacy S.

Team Members: Mike G., Elli B., Jill N., Jon M., Katie W.

Team 10 – Inspirational Words

The small, but mighty Team 10 painted inspirational messages on bungalows the main quad where many students pass between classes or come to hang out at recess. One of our very own amazing artists, Nicole W., free-handed the outline of the messages onto two of the walls and we then filled them in so that students see uplifting messages as they walk through this part of campus. Time became of the essence after lunch as we learned that the pace needed to be increased tremendously to finish in enough time. Thankfully, we had a great group of volunteers come over to save the day by knocking out a good chunk of the filling in of the letters and we then focused on painting the details and touching up. Aryan took the lead on making sure we didn’t miss any details on each letter and we finished on time and ended up with two amazing walls!

Team Leaders: Heather W.

Team Members: Nicole W., Aryan M.

Team 11 – Textbook Room Organizing and Clean-Up

Team 11 walked into a huge warehouse of books, office supplies and general misc. piles. Boxes had to be opened, all books and office materials on every shelf and in every cabinet had to be inventoried (including the unending stacks of post-its and hanging file folders), and we had to dig into the random piles. The goal was to find out what resources they had then split all the inventory and move it into two distinct areas – one for Partnership for Los Angeles Schools areas and one for Green Dot usage.

While at first glance it seemed overwhelming, Melody, our amazing team leader from Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, became our ring leader, paired us with some of her fantastic teammates and school volunteers and set us to task against all her lists and spreadsheets. A special thanks to Mike H. and Kathy N. who made sure we had music blasting throughout to keep us moving.

At the end of the day we received reinforcements and we were able to make a huge dent in the daunting task. Melody and her colleagues were extremely thankful and said the work we had done would have taken them 6+ weeks. Way to go textbook team!

Team Leaders: Shelly W. and Chris S.

Team Members: Jaxon T., Kim G., Mike H., Veena M., Deana J., Shammara W., Kathy N.

Team 12 – Project Spirit Assistants

While Team Spirit wasn’t assigned to a specific task, we provided the other teams with water, sunscreen and other key items necessary to complete their projects. I am extremely proud of Leila and Lindsay, who brought a positive attitude and energy to every team we visited. They were extremely motivated to help out where necessary and ensured that everyone stayed hydrated and no one went home with a sunburn. Overall, I would say Team Spirit = Team Success!!!

Team Leader: Katherine W.

Team Members: Lindsay A., Leila N.

Team 13 – Boy’s Recreation Area

13 proved to be a lucky number for our team! Kristy M., Chelsea O., James H., and Arianna H. tackled the boys’ recreation area, a small area of the school’s playground that was in need of some TLC. Armed with new basketball and volleyball nets, we set out to revitalize the area. After unwinding some tricky knots and removing rusty hoops, we were able to hang our new nets, creating a much more inviting place to play. Team 13 also realized that, even though the new hoops were hung and ready to go, the courts were covered in too much broken glass to be safe for students, so we rustled up some brooms to sweep it all away. We’re excited for the heated competition that can now take place on the basketball and volleyball courts – go Bulldogs!

Team Leader: Arianna H.

Team Members: James H., Chelsea O., Kristy M.

Event Coordination

I was so happy and honored to coordinate Revolution’s annual day of service. It was a lot of hard work on everyone’s part and in the end, the campus was absolutely transformed. Thank you to all the teams and team leaders for their hard work and for showing Jordan High School how we can Revolutionize their campus! – Jules

Operations Table

Throughout the entire service project, Billy and Peter were fiercely manning the Ops Table, ensuring that every team had the tools and supplies necessary to get their team’s job done…and done well. Occasionally you would see either one of them operating the large pick-up truck through the narrow outside corridors, bringing large truckloads of plants to the landscaping teams. You could see by the expressions on their faces that they were strategically planning every move, enjoying that they could make every turn without a scratch. They saved the day numerous times and that’s why they are our Superheros!

All-Access Pass

Shout-outs to Sean Ross, our amazing photographer and videographer who somehow always happens to catch every striking moment…including the Peter and Bennington water episode. He always beautifully captures the hard work and dedication each Revolutionary team puts into their project. And not to mention…he was able to film himself teaching other Revolutionaries how to do the OG Running Man (Sean is taking enrollments on private lessons). Plus he continues to find songs that nobody has EVER heard of, but all fall in love with, forever gives Sean Ross the All-Access Pass.