For Dan Amisi, it’s the smiles that keep him coming back. Since 2023, Amisi — a project coordinator with PCL Construction’s Calgary office — has organized groups of PCL employees to volunteer with the Calgary Drop-In Centre. The nonprofit cites its mission as “working with community to end homelessness” by providing emergency accommodation and meals, along with access to health services, recovery resources and housing support.

The center served nearly 700,000 meals last year, some of which were dished out by Amisi and his fellow Calgary employees. Once a month, they take the early morning breakfast shift, which can be the busiest of the day.

“You get to build relationships with some of the folks there. It’s just nice to make people smile,” he says.

Amisi is one of countless PCL employees across Canada who lead local community support efforts where they live and work. Employees are passionate about these causes because they believe that building communities isn’t just about erecting structures; it’s about taking care of others. These volunteer efforts strengthen relationships across PCL’s offices and departments, creating more opportunities for collaboration and innovation that deliver added value for the company’s clients. 

Even some of PCL’s largest charitable initiatives have local roots. Before the company became a national sponsor of MS Bike, a series of cycling events that raise funds for multiple sclerosis research, employees were pedaling and raising money in their hometown rides.

And while PCL has partnered with United Way for more than 50 years, more than 30 offices across North America organize their own local United Way fundraising campaigns and plan unique events.

Due to the sheer number of employees working in and around PCL’s North American headquarters in Edmonton, the United Way campaign there is the company’s biggest. When Ian McKinnon chaired it in 2023, employees raised more than $2.35 million  to help people in the region out of poverty.

As McKinnon, manager of civil operations for PCL’s Edmonton Buildings and Civil division, began to build a team and plan the campaign, he saw just how committed PCL employees are to giving back.

“It’s ingrained in the fiber of our company and our culture,” he says. “It’s a rallying point for the company.”

Amisi’s volunteer work at the Drop-In Centre started as part of the Calgary Corporate Challenge, but he enjoyed it so much that he took the lead organizing the monthly morning shift. 

He admits it took some time to convince co-workers to get up early, but eventually word got around and the core group grew. He’s even pitched it to other departments in the Calgary office as a team-building exercise.

“I’m on-site, so I don’t really communicate much with people in the office,” he says. “But when we volunteer, we see folks from accounting or HR, so it’s an opportunity to make connections outside of the people I see day-to-day.” 

The relationships built outside his department are something McKinnon also values from his time as United Way campaign chair. The campaign committee that year included people from PCL’s Canadian Industrial team, as well as marketing and communications, business technology and several other departments he wouldn’t often interact with. Now, he can more readily call on those people to help deliver results for clients. “I might see them briefly at different events throughout the year, but on the committee, we’re all working and melding together,” he says.

While Karsten Krumhardt has worked for PCL’s BC Region office for about five years, he’s been bringing people together through soccer for much longer. A lifelong fan of the game, he’s been involved with the Kick for a Cure soccer tournament since it started in 2007. The annual tournament in Coquitlam, B.C., brings out amateur teams to raise money for the Michael Cuccione Foundation, which funds research into childhood cancer. “It’s a combination of a love for the sport and supporting an organization that I feel like I’ve been a part of for so long,” he says. “It feels very organic, like you’re just helping out friends.”

Krumhardt, a project coordinator on the New St. Paul’s Hospital project in Vancouver, first got involved with the tournament after his mother’s co-worker’s son was diagnosed with cancer. He first played on a team with his mom and his twin sister, but he eventually formed his own teams. When he started at PCL, he spread the word about the foundation and the work it does in the community while drumming up more participants.

“My whole full-time career at PCL has been working on New St. Paul’s, so it’s nice to see some of the people from the district office at the tournament that I knew when I was a co-op student,” he says.

Like Krumhardt’s involvement with Kick for a Cure, the relationship between PCL’s Ottawa office and First Assist also developed organically. First Assist is an organization that gives Indigenous kids in Northern communities the chance to advance their educational achievements through sports. Eligibility for the athletic programs hinges on participants’ school attendance.

Superintendent Colin van Rootselaar and executive assistant Jeanine Martens met First Assist founder John Chabot — a former National Hockey League player from the Algonquin community of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation — in 2022 through the office's DARE6 partnership with Algonquin College. DARE6 connects the college with corporate stakeholders to further the college’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. In 2020, PCL was the first firm to sign on to the initiative.

Since then, the Ottawa office has organized a drive to collect hockey equipment for young participants and a silent auction to raise money for the organization.

“John really wants to build the next generation of leaders for these communities,” van Rootselaar says. “It’s not about building NHL stars. It’s about understanding there’s more to this world.”

“Ottawa is a young office, with lots of parents running from rink to rink for hockey. Those types of sports opportunities are easily available here in the southern part of the country, so we don’t think twice about it,” Martens adds. “Northern communities, however, don’t have access to that same level of organization or those facilities.”

Martens and van Rootselaar agree that seeing the impact these donations can make is a powerful experience. The pair traveled with Chabot to Rapid Lake, Quebec, a First Nations reserve about three hours north of Ottawa. It was in the summer, so the kids weren’t playing hockey, but they were still getting active in First Assist sports programing and having fun.

“That gave us a real sense of the community,” van Rootselaar says. “It was just incredible to watch. There were maybe ten kids in the gym after school, and they were all there of their own volition. It’s about providing the opportunity; I took a lot away from that. It’s about giving kids direction through sports.”

Back in Calgary, while PCL’s volunteer work at the Calgary Drop-In Centre has supported vulnerable community members, it has also profoundly influenced Amisi.

“The people in that environment are calm and appreciative. It makes you reframe how you think about the unhoused population,” he says. “Having a meal at the beginning of the day, it’s just part of the routine for most of us. Seeing people who don’t have that makes you rethink things.”

PCL and its employees are constantly rethinking how they approach both community involvement and construction. That way, they can continue partnering with clients and local organizations to strengthen communities and bring smiles to people’s faces.