Partnering with disability-focused organizations in our communities

Bender Leadership Academy in Moon Township, Pennsylvania is expanding opportunities for employment of people with disabilities from youth through adulthood. Recently, the PPG Foundation teamed up with the Academy for the Digital Access @ Work program, which is part of a workforce development program to address barriers to employment of people with disabilities.

Helping participants with disabilities develop essential competencies in the emerging field of digital accessibility, this project experience culminated in testing mobile applications and website accessibility for real businesses under the guidance of field experts.

“Programs like Digital Access @ Work are core to pursuing STEM and societal equity,” said Malesia Dunn, executive director, PPG Foundation and Corporate Global Social Responsibility. “To best serve our diverse world, the PPG Foundation and PPG’s community investments aim to create accessible pathways to essential educational programming and to serve organizations that seek to remove barriers.”

Each March, the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD) marks Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, raising awareness of the inclusion and contributions of people with developmental disabilities in all aspects of community life. It is a time to explore the work needed to remove barriers. In honor of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, read on to learn about some of PPG’s disability-focused community partners.

• X-Bots Robotics Inc.: The PPG Foundation supports the X-Bots Robotics Mobility Program, a STEM program that partners middle school and high school students from a Robotics team with participating teens from Boys & Girls Clubs, giving them an opportunity to work together to build specially designed physical therapy cars for toddlers with cerebral disorders affecting their body mobility. In 2023, PPG funded four building workshops that took place in West Palm Beach, FL; Whittier, CA; Greensboro, NC; and Pittsburgh, PA. As part of these workshops, PPG employee volunteers also participated in the building process and shared their STEM career journeys with participants. Read more here.
• Mindsteps: PPG held a COLORFUL COMMUNITIES® project at Mindsteps, a training center for children and young people with disabilities in Herlev, Denmark. More than 30 PPG volunteers spent two days renovating the facility with specifically chosen colors to positively impact the youth. In addition, PPG made a charitable donation to establish a new learning space and purchase computers to be used at the center’s school. Learn more in this video and press release.
• American Printing House for the Blind (APH): In year two of our partnership, American Printing House (APH), a nonprofit organization whose mission is empowering people who are blind or low vision by providing accessible and innovative products, materials, and services for lifelong success, hosted its National Coding Symposium. Designed to ignite the interests of participants and feature experts who are blind or low vision throughout the coding field, the 2023 APH National Coding Symposium provided the latest information and resources to parents, educators, and associated professionals seeking to encourage young learners with vision loss and an interest in coding. Read more here.
• COLORFUL COMMUNITIES® projects: Several Colorful Communities projects in 2023 impacted disability-focused organizations, such as Latido Sordo in Mexico, an organization that serves people experiencing deafness, the AFM-Téléthon in France, which supports research to fight muscular dystrophy and other diseases, Give Kids the World Village, a nonprofit resort in Kissimmee, Florida which provides week-long, cost-free vacations to critically ill children and their families, and KBF Wohnhaus für Menschen mit Behinderungen, an organization in Bodelshausen, Germany which supports people with disabilities. Learn more about our Colorful Communities program.
• Charity Partner Program: PPG’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region runs a Charity Partner program in which employees select a charitable organization for their site to support throughout the year with donations, fundraising activities, and volunteering, with PPG matching every dollar raised. Some examples of Charity Partners supported in 2023 that impacted individuals with disabilities include Autism Aid Onlus in Italy to help children with autism, CentroDown Alessandria in Italy to support children with Down syndrome, Austismo Valladolid in Spain to improve the quality of life of people with ASD and their families, and Mind in the United Kingdom, providing mental support services.

To read more about PPG’s community engagement investments and how we prioritize equity in all that we do, click here.