Hitachi Transport System (America), Ltd. has partnered with The American Red Cross in PrepareLA by donating 4,500 square feet of warehouse space to the American Red Cross Los Angeles Region, to store disaster relief supplies. These supplies include cots, water, blankets and other materials. This will increase the Red Cross’ readiness to respond to disasters of all sizes including, single family home fires, wildfires and earthquakes. The American Red Cross looks to corporations like Hitachi Transport to help people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies.

At Penrickton Center for Blind Children, children see the world for the first time - and the Community Action Committee at Hitachi Farmington Hills is helping make that happen.

"Penrickton is a nonprofit child care center for children who are blind and have another disability," says Patty Obrzut, the assistant director at Penrickton. "We have a residential and day care program for children between the ages of one and 13."

For Hitachi Canada, Ltd., Mastering Community Action (MCA) means focus. The MCA process, initiated as a means to strengthen the quality and impact of the Hitachi group's community engagement efforts, is helping Hitachi Canada, Ltd. to crystallize its direction as it builds upon a tradition of community involvement. "It certainly gave us a better understanding of the vision and direction that forms the foundation of our Community Action Committee," says Doug Baba, CAC chair.

The Community Action Committee (CAC) at Hitachi America, Ltd., based in Tarrytown, NY, has reached the Masters level, the highest step on the Mastering Community Action (MCA) process, the self-assessment program that moves CACs along a continuum of community engagement. Doing so has helped this CAC focus intently on how they invest their money and where they invest their time.

Every year, the Community Action Committee (CAC) at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in Rochester, Minnesota sponsors Days of Caring, an employee volunteer effort. It's the days of work before the Days of Caring that has made this program very successful and very meaningful, with sizable numbers of employees signing up every year to venture out into the community.

Project management is the key, says Micaela Flannery and Joan Stiller, CAC chair and CAC member, respectively. "Last year was the first year that we adopted an agency for the year," says Flannery. "We choose two employees to act as project managers. They meet with coordinators at the agencies and come up with projects and different jobs that need to be done throughout the year."

Living on low-wage employment is a tenuous perch. No matter how hard one works, no matter how focused one is on building a future for self and family, one unfortunate and unforeseen slip can lead to homelessness. Catching individuals and families before this happens, and giving them the economic breathing room to right themselves, is what the pioneering Bridge Fund of Westchester has been doing for 16 years. For 12 of those years the Community Action Committee (CAC) at Hitachi America, Ltd. in Tarrytown, NY, has been helping.

With a dropout rate somewhere around 50 percent, the Los Angeles Unified School District is a tough place for a child to be successful. But the Inside Out Community Arts program, with the help of the Hitachi Southern California Regional Community Action Committee (SCRCAC), is proving that art can turn the picture around.

Children of parents who have not received high school diplomas or college degrees are likely to repeat the pattern says the RAND Corporation. The U.S. Census Bureau college data show that college graduates earn twice that of high school grads. While more young people of all social and economic groups are entering college, there are still large gaps in college degree attainment across racial and ethnic lines.

When it comes to the vexing question of how to deliver health care to uninsured families and children, Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHC) and the Community Action Committees at Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi Home Electronics America have an answer: Take the bus!

Sometimes, you can see the benefit of your good works go up right in front of you. That was the case when Hitachi America, Ltd., in Brisbane, California, provided support to Rebuilding Together Peninsula (RTP), a project that fixes both the homes of low-income individuals and the buildings of nonprofit organizations in a 35-square mile section of Northern California. What's more, Hitachi America knew before they ever cut a check that their investment would surely help people like Ida and Marianne Spargo.