Sep 29, 2025
How POWER’s Partnership with DonorsChoose is Leaving a Lasting Impact for Chester Upland High School — and Public Schools Across the U.S.
For the past two years, POWER has partnered with education nonprofit, DonorsChoose, in an effort to give back to public schools in the communities we operate in. To continue on the momentum we’ve built over the past two years, we wanted to create even more tangible impact — starting in Chester — the city that POWER’s Headquarters calls home.
Read on to learn how we teamed up with Chester Upland High School to revitalize their library for deserving students, in addition to supporting public school teachers across the country.
Pioneering a New Way to Give Back
As part of a new DonorsChoose piloted program, employees from POWER’s Chester-based Headquarters, voted for a local school to update a space in their building, with POWER providing the funds necessary to do so. Chester High School won the employee vote to receive $50,000 to refresh their library.
In addition to the grant, in true POWER fashion, employees mobilized behind the project and donated their time to help with demolition and various improvements of the library. Throughout the summer, POWER, DonorsChoose, and educational supply company, Lakeshore Learning, worked tirelessly to demo the space, clear out old books and supplies, install new carpeting, paint, and move in new furniture, supplies and over 500 new books for students.
A Grand Reveal
“C-Pride” runs deep in Chester, and it’s palpable at Chester Upland High School. On September 19th, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to unveil the new space to faculty, students, alumni, local community, and government officials — showing up for one another and showing out like we always do in Chester.
A performance from the Chester Upland High School Cheerleading team and a series of speeches filled with moments of gratitude kicked off the event, concluding with POWER’s Director of Community Impact, Jim Myers. “This space is proof of the good that can happen when we choose to open our ears to the needs of our communities and give where we live,” said Myers at the event.
Myers also revealed a heartfelt surprise to the room. POWER originally provided a grant for $50,000, but after seeing the completed, over 10,000 sq.ft. library after load-in of furniture, it became apparent that our initial $50,000 investment wouldn’t be enough to fully outfit the space for CHS’s students. POWER worked with Lakeshore Learning and DonorsChoose to scope out what remaining supplies would be needed, and committed an additional $30,000 to this project bringing the total investment to $80,000. The energy and gratitude filled the room.
Chester Upland High School’s student body government members also spoke at the gathering. “We are excited to use this space to build, collaborate and discover,” he said. “It is the spaces like this that engineers are made (and) college essays are written. Knowledge expands, power is gained and dreams come true.”
An Unlikely, But Powerful Partnership
A home remodeling company might seem like an unexpected ally to teachers, but we both share a belief in the potential of people. For teachers, it’s their students; for POWER it’s our employees. We wanted to find a way to give back to teachers — the people that have been some of the first to believe in all of us — but needed a partner to connect us.
It was in 2024 when we started our partnership with DonorsChoose, an education nonprofit that helps to fund public school teacher’s requests for school supplies – whether they be books, markers, science kits, sports equipment, or snacks. By giving teachers the tools they need, we are helping to foster potential around us, and combat the inequity that exists in school funding.
Rather than write a check to DonorsChoose, we took a unique approach to give our employees voice and choice in how exactly these funds would be distributed. POWER literally put the power into the hands of its people by allocating each employee $150 dollars and asking them to choose what type of school supplies they would like to help a teacher in a local classroom provide for their students. Our people were so engaged with last year’s programming earning a 76% participation rate.
Supporting Teachers in Chester & Beyond
In addition to our Chester High School library revitalization project, POWER and DonorsChoose ran back the same giving initiative from 2024 during September this year, but instead upped our total donation to $600,000.
In 2025, POWER employees’ donation choices helped over 1,000 teachers and funded projects at 1,000+ different public schools across our local communities within categories of Food, Clothing & Hygiene; Classroom Basics & Art Supplies; Books, Educational Kits & Games; Instruments, Sports & Lab Equipment; and Computers, Tablets & Technology. To date, POWER has now donated over $1.1M through DonorsChoose.
This impactful partnership is part of our POWER for Good program, a set of employee-led initiatives that amplify the vision and voices of employees to shape the entirety of its support to nonprofits across the country.
To see and feel the full impact of this project, check out the video below.
To learn more about DonorsChoose and find ways to support their mission, go to DonorsChoose.org.
If you’re looking for a career where your work truly matters, explore open positions on our Careers page.
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