Fairfield, CA – Dozens of volunteers from Vacaville based Genentech rolled up their sleeves and offered support at Suisun Valley K-8 on Friday morning. The school and biotechnology company have partnered for the past eleven years, with employees helping to clean up, repair, and build the expansive school campus garden at the Suisun Valley campus.

Breaking into small teams, volunteers covered a variety of small projects to prepare the area for the new school year, allowing children to begin the planting process when school starts. One group expanded the school chicken coop, another constructed more garden boxes, while others restored items that needed to be fixed in the garden. In total, over 50 employees participated alongside school officials.

Principal Jas Bains Wright remarked on the event, saying, “The success of our school and our agri-science program is a community effort. Genentech employees have played a key role in the sustainability of our program for more than a decade.”

The work of Genentech employees is part of the company’s annual “Give Back” campaign. Employees from across the company’s U.S. sites have donated thousands of volunteer hours and money to support schools and nonprofits across their neighboring communities.

Suisun Valley K-8 is home to an award winning agri-science program. The program is led by a full time agriscience teacher and the school farm includes an outdoor kitchen classroom, a greenhouse, a quarter-acre of field crops, 104 raised beds, 29 fruit trees, a vineyard, a quarter-acre permaculture guild area, an eighth-acre California native garden section, eight egg-producing chickens, and seed/cutting production areas.

Suisun Valley serves nearly 600 students in the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District.