GOLDEN Employees Volunteer Time in Local Community for Earth Day 2008 Clean Up

Employees at Golden Artist Colors, Inc. celebrated Earth Day 2008 today by volunteering their time to help clean up garbage on the roadsides of Columbus. GOLDEN, a company committed to supporting its local community, asked for employees to volunteer two hours of their time for this event. The company began Earth Day Clean Up in 2005 and each year it's been done, there has been an increase in participation from staff. Of its 147 full-time employees, over 60% were able to participate in this event. This year, Bert Adams Disposal supported the cleanup with a donation of a 20 yard roll-off container. This will be used to transport the debris to the landfill for disposal.

"We have been given the ability to grow a successful company that can afford to offer its staff the opportunity to share its gifts of time, commitment and care to its neighbors," said GOLDEN CEO, Mark Golden. "Employee owners here at GOLDEN have committed to a legacy that doing good things creates good business. It's one more way for us to support our small community."

One of the benefits of being an employee at GOLDEN is that all full-time employees may use 40 hours per year of paid Community Service time. This event is one way that staff can use that time. If employees serve as a volunteer for a fire association, police force or emergency squad, they have access to 80 hours per year of Community Service time.

Employees worked in pairs for the cleanup and the goal at the end of the day was to not only clean up all 48 miles of the Town of Columbus maintained highway, which is what has been done in the past, but to also Adopt-A-Highway from State Route 8 to Norton Road in Columbus.

In order to Adopt-A-Highway, Golden Artist Colors, Inc. was asked by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) to commit to picking up litter along the two mile stretch of state highway at least two times a year for two years. Before the first litter pick-up on State Route 8, DOT outfitted the adopters with the appropriate orange safety gear, provided trash bags for roadside clean-up and was responsible for picking up the litter collected by volunteers and properly disposing of the trash that was collected.