Community Service 2009 Company of the Week

September 6, 2009

Webster Financial Corporation

Webster employees Santo Lombardo and Sumakshi Vali during Webster Junior Achievement Day at Bellizzi Middle School in Hartford, Conn.

Webster Financial Corp. Employees Bring Economics, Free Enterprise to Life for Inner City Students in Hartford, Conn.

Thirty-six employees of Webster Financial Corp. spent a day this spring teaching students at Bellizzi Middle School in Hartford, Conn., a Junior Achievement (JA) curriculum. It is the third year Webster has adopted the school to deliver the “JA In A Day” curriculum to fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students, which offers lessons about the values of free enterprise, business and economics. All of the volunteers saw first-hand the challenges faced by inner city teachers and administrators — and what a difference one-on-one attention can make to students in this critical age group. For Darlene Raffanello, project manager in Webster’s Continuous Improvement department, it was her second year volunteering. “It’s a really good feeling to know that you’ve helped them connect the dots, made some sense of their world and provided them with some realistic insights about what it will take to reach their goals,” Raffanello said.

For more information on Community Service 2009, please visit www.financialcommunityservice.org.

Click Here to view a list of our past Companies of the Week.