WSP Habitat for Humanity Projects Are Making a Difference in Local Communities

Whether constructing new homes or building playhouses for kids, hundreds of volunteers recently answered the call to make a difference in their communities as part of WSP’s 2023 Habitat for Humanity Build Day on Oct. 14.

For WSP, what started as a Seattle office community project in 2019 quickly spread to 15 locations across 10 states just four years later, thanks to coordination through the firm’s Developing Professionals Network (DPN) — a community of emerging professionals from all offices and sectors across WSP with the shared mission of advancing the business and culture.

“About a year ago, we tasked DPN and our young, growing talent to develop a program for WSP that better connects us to our communities,” said Chris Peters, West region president at WSP. “They came up with this excellent idea to have these 15 Habitat builds. We had about 300 volunteers participate, half WSP employees and the other half were some of our clients, peers and partners.”

It was an opportunity for DPN members to showcase their leadership, refine program management skills and contribute to equitable housing. It was also a continuation of WSP’s focus for more than a century of helping communities achieve their greatest potential for health and safety, connectivity, prosperity, equity and resilience.

High Energy Collaboration

Volunteer opportunities at each site included new construction builds, playhouses to help revitalize neighborhoods and necessary repairs to existing homes.   

“This is part of our firm’s ESG [environmental, social and governmental] commitment,” said Lou Cornell, president and chief executive officer at WSP in the U.S. “It is truly the ‘S’ in ESG. It’s that social component that is so important to us as an organization. We live, work and play in our communities and this is one way we can contribute that is very much aligned with our purpose and commitments.”

“My favorite part about the build was seeing how happy everyone was together,” said Spiridon Pappas, climate resilience consultant at WSP. “The Habitat site leads, WSP staff, and other colleagues and clients who attended, kept the energy high with laughter and, when the future homeowners stopped by, it reminded us why we were doing this important work in the first place.”

While this effort aligned with WSP’s goal to give back to communities, the main objective was to deepen individual employee commitments to social action through volunteerism.

“Despite the challenges of scaling the effort, this campaign successfully demonstrated how powerful our impact is when we work together,” Pappas added. 

“The first year broadening programs in this way can be hard to plan, but once you bring the right people in, the job gets done,” said Sam Dodt, assistant traffic engineer at WSP and a volunteer for the Seattle team. “In partnership with our U.S. leadership and staff across the company, we were able to create a program with massive impact. You can’t do that with a mediocre team. It’s an empowering example for our communities.”

Expanding the Effort

“As a leading engineering, environment and professional services consultancy in the U.S, we are responsible for how we improve and impact the world around us and that starts at the community level,” Dodt added. “WSP’s combined efforts at all of these locations will help revitalize neighborhoods, unify our teams across the business and align WSP values with the personal values of our employees.”

WSP sponsored teams for Habitat for Humanity Build Day in Albuquerque, Boise, Boulder, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orange, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Seattle and Tempe – with aims set at more locations in future years.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit housing organization that works in local communities across all 50 states in the U.S. and in more than 70 countries. Habitat for Humanity has built, rehabilitated, repaired or improved more than 600,000 houses worldwide since 1976. In the 2022 fiscal year alone, Habitat helped more than 7.1 million people build or improve a place to call home, and through training and advocacy, an additional 5 million more gained the potential to improve their housing conditions.

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