Veritas Actively Supports Community Groups and Nonprofits
The San Francisco Bay Area isn’t just where we do business – it’s our home. Since 2007, Veritas has embraced our foundational commitment to be a good neighbor and global citizen. This means giving back to the colorful, diverse neighborhoods we live and work in, and supporting organizations that make a positive change in our global community.
Strengthening Our Communities
Golden Gate Park Volunteer Day
This past September, nearly 150 Veritas volunteers participated in a day of giving at Golden Gate Park. In partnership with the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department, our team members got their hands dirty by tending to the park’s lush garden areas around Stow Lake. With shovels, loppers, gloves and rakes, the team was tasked with weeding, trimming bushes and cleaning up the children’s play ground and wedding sites. The result of the team’s hard work–beautifying Golden Gate Park–supports the Veritas’ Spark mission of making a positive impact on the communities where we live and work.
Backpack Drive
Veritas teamed up with Family Giving Tree, a charitable organization committed to empowering, uplifting, and uniting Bay Area students, to provide 60 fully stocked backpacks for the 2023-24 school year. Since 1990, Family Giving Tree has delivered over 2 million backpacks filled with school supplies and wished-for holiday gifts to recipients who face financial hardships.
Dozens of employees donated school supplies and worked together to fill each backpack for young scholars. Our team is committed to being a part of the movement to fight educational inequity and equip Bay Area students to rise to new heights.
Summer of Love – Spread Love, Stop Hate
After a year like 2020, everyone could benefit from some extra love and support. Veritas adorned its 500+ leasing signs and buildings throughout the city as a reminder of joy, community, and togetherness to share the Summer of Love message to Spread Love. Residents were given an additional reminder in the form of a small sticker matching the sign outside their homes, as an easy way to keep the message of inclusion close.
Click here to see how you can continue to spread love, long after our Summer of Love has come to an end.
Stop Asian Hate
As an Asian American-owned company native to the San Francisco Bay Area, Veritas took a stand against hatred towards members of our Asian and Pacific Islander communities.Veritas’ building signs were covered with “Stop Asian Hate” messages with the reminder to “Dial 911 to Report Hate” and a QR code leading to anti-Asian hate resources.
Lighting Up Valencia Street
“Help Light Up Valencia Street!” raised money for lights to be strung along a ten-block stretch from 14th to 24th Streets to symbolize the resilient spirit of the small businesses that persevered through the COVID-19 pandemic. Veritas contributed to the fundraising effort to help build community among the hundreds of residents it serves in the Mission neighborhood.
Paint the Void for Beauty & Activism
Veritas was a proud supporter of the grass-roots effort Paint the Void as they transformed boarded-up storefronts with beautiful murals by local artists, including a few Veritas Resident Managers. Paint the Void provides grants to artists to use their artistic skills to share messages of hope and inspiration. Over 100 murals were created, two of them on Veritas buildings, with many conveying messages of racial awareness, reflecting the national conversation surrounding equality in 2020.
Live with Character Campaign
In each neighborhood of every city, there is someone who goes the extra mile to help their community. To recognize and reward these individual efforts, Veritas awarded $1,500 to four winners of its 2020 Live with Character campaign. Peter, the campaign’s first honoree, said Veritas “is working for good helping those in our community.”
San Francisco LGBTQ+ Pride Parade
Veritas always honored Pride Month with a mix of festive fun, education, and support for the local LGBTQIA+ community. In 2022, we proudly sponsored and volunteered at the Juanita MORE! Pride Sunday Party, an event in which all proceeds were donated to San Francisco’s Q Foundation. Back in 2019, Veritas volunteers took to the streets to hand out custom rainbow bandanas at San Francisco’s Pride Parade celebrating love and pride with the community.
Rededication of the Rainbow Flag Apartments at 324 Larkin
In collaboration with the Q Foundation, Veritas made history by supporting the re-dedication of 324 Larkin as the “Rainbow Flag Apartments.” This building had once been an LGBTQ landmark and an important piece of San Francisco history before its legacy faded with time. Now, the rainbow flag and iconic letters have returned to this beautiful building.
Sparking Change with Pledge 1%
In 2019, Veritas became one of the first real estate firms to join Pledge 1%, a global movement dedicated to making a positive social impact. Pledge 1% encourages businesses around the world to donate 1% of product, 1% of profit or 1% of employee time to improve their communities, knowing that a 1% contribution today can have an enormous impact tomorrow.
Home Bridge Program
Through its relationship with industry leader Apartment List, Veritas helped establish the Home Bridge Program, a collaboration between property management firms and local organizations to help families find relief during times of crisis, emergency or unforeseen circumstances. Veritas supported Ronald McDonald House Charities and UCSF by donating temporary, furnished housing for families with children receiving life-saving medical treatment, keeping families together near their doctors and care centers.
To learn more about how the Home Bridge Program assisted with the wildfire relief effort in 2018 click here.
Veritas Volunteer Days
As a commitment to serving the neighborhoods where we live and work, Veritas hosts company-wide volunteer days to give back to the colorful, diverse neighborhoods of San Francisco.
Habitat for Humanity Volunteer Day
Whether an apartment or a house, we recognize that a home is a place of safety and security. Our team had first-hand experience in creating new homes through a volunteer day with Habitat for Humanity. Relying on teams of volunteers and community donations, Habitat for Humanity builds homes and sustains affordable homeownership opportunities for families in the Bay Area. The 2-year construction project in the Diamond Heights neighborhood will create 8 new, single-family homes. Veritas volunteer and Regional Property Manager, Maria Recht, dedicated her time to make a difference, choosing “to be part of what matters.”
St. Vincent de Paul Meal Service
St. Vincent de Paul was established in 1860 with a goal to assist those that need help the most.
We are proud of our relationship with St. Vincent de Paul and our monthly lunch service. Small groups prepared and served a hot lunch and packed to-go meals for the homeless, the newly housed community, and those that need the extra help.
Mission Cleanup with Clean Mission
Armed with trash bags, gloves and garbage pickers, the entire Veritas team launched its community impact initiative in August 2019 with a cleanup day in the Mission Dolores neighborhood. Veritas Spark’s volunteers picked up a total of over 3,500 gallons of trash, which the Clean Mission organization later confirmed was more than double their previous garbage pickup record.
Spring Cleaning with Meaning
Veritas team members brought in gently used clothing to donate to non-profits Casa de las Madres and Larkin Street Youth. The team collected hundreds of clothing items, then folded and sorted them prior to delivering to these local organizations. In addition, Veritas purchased personal hygiene items that the team packaged into individual kits to complement the clothing donation.
Share the Love
We love our wonderful San Francisco community year-round, but what better occasion to express our feelings than Valentine’s Day? Our annual Share the Love event had more than 40 employees and resident managers converge at Veritas corporate office with craft supplies in hand, to create colorful handmade greeting cards. Together we were able to make 160 cards, spreading cupid cheer to homebound seniors served by Meals on Wheels.
Keeping San Francisco Retail Local
Vibrant communities reflect their residents and local establishments. We partner with local businesses like Maison Danel on Polk Street, Il Casaro in the Church-Market corridor, Dog-Eared Books in the Mission, and No. 3 in Pacific Heights – not big chains – to fill our retail spaces with warmth, personality, and most importantly, enhance the existing feeling of community that makes these neighborhoods special.
Learning and Applying Professional Skills with Project SEARCH
Project SEARCH is a training partnership with Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco School District, and WorkLink. Each year, 8-10 interns with intellectual and developmental disabilities work at Kaiser Permanente’s San Francisco medical centers and hospital, learning vital workplace skills. We recently welcomed Project SEARCH interns to our office, where one of our employees, a former participant in the program, showed them how their skillset can be applied throughout a company.
vWire
Veritas shows its support for women with VWIRE (Veritas Women in Real Estate) to help women (and men) in their growth as mentors share career advice, personal experiences, and focus on professional and personal accomplishments while focusing on work/life balance.
Philanthropic Efforts
Veritas recognizes the importance of charitable giving by supporting organizations that help advance the common good in our community and beyond. Since the inception of our company in 2007, we have contributed to stellar philanthropic organizations who are recognized for their positive impact on the lives of people they serve.
Self-Help for the Elderly
With the increase of Asian Hate crimes in 2020, Veritas contributed to a program that hit close to home. A donation to Self-Help for the Elderly allowed the program to escort Asian American seniors for several additional months, and a contribution of 2,000 PPE care kits were sent to the elderly Chinese-American San Francisco residents.
Safe Home Program
During times of uncertainty, having a safe place to call home becomes paramount. A home provides a foundation for consistency and security. Through our Safe Home Program, Veritas provided temporary, furnished apartments at no cost to victims of domestic violence to help ensure their well-being during COVID — a time when domestic violence surged. These apartments offered a temporary shelter to call home while providing safety, privacy and comfort.
PPE During the Pandemic
Early on in 2020, one Veritas employee recognized that medical staff did not have enough PPE. He reached out to his Veritas colleagues asking for donations to secure much needed supplies for local healthcare workers. The team raised enough money for 60,000+ surgical masks for Oakland Kaiser Permanente.
Sound the Alarm, Save a Life Event with American Red Cross
Fire safety is a pressing issue that affects everyone – statistics show that 1 in 1,500 people will die from fire or smoke inhalation. We recently teamed up with the American Red Cross to sponsor and volunteer for their “Sound the Alarm, Save a Life” campaign, which takes a proactive approach to educating families about fire safety, identifies residences that need new smoke detectors and installs them for free, and helps families develop personalized fire escape plans.
HealthRight 360 Mobile Medical Clinic
HealthRight 360 is the modern torchbearer for San Francisco’s long legacy of community healthcare services. Veritas proudly contributed grant funding to help bring the HealthRight 360 Mobile Clinic – a tie-dye colored medical van – to life. The Mobile Clinic extends the nonprofit’s reach by bringing free, high-quality primary care services directly to vulnerable San Franciscans in the Tenderloin, with plans to expand its footprint in the future.
Butterfly Mural & New Butterfly Bench in the Tenderloin
Utilizing one of the largest canvases in San Francisco, Veritas partnered with Ink Dwell Studio, the creators of the environmentally-conscious Migrating Mural campaign, to paint monarch butterflies on the side of the classic Tenderloin building, 455 Hyde. The mural brought hope and inspiration to the neighborhood while also generating awareness for the declining population of the Monarch butterflies.
Veritas joined city officials in welcoming locals back to Turk-Hyde minipark, a space where neighborhood children can safely learn and play. Renovations feature new playground equipment, landscaping, tables and a bold mosaic bench created by noted Berkeley artist Wilma Wyss and commissioned by Veritas.
Fighting Cancer with City of Hope
City of Hope is a leading independent research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Based in Southern California, it works with researchers around the US, and treats patients worldwide. In 2018, Veritas’ leadership team and employees joined its Spirit of Life campaign, helping raise over $1 million for research.
Creating Homes in Haiti with New Story
New Story, a San Francisco start-up, is dedicated to building homes for families in impoverished areas around the world. In 2017, Veritas “adopted” this organization to raise money that supported local employment, materials and homebuilding. Through the individual employee contributions and corporate matching, Veritas raised over $10,000 for New Story.
Building Relationships
Veritas actively supports the efforts of neighborhood organizations and the real estate community to improve the economic, social, and cultural prospects of our neighbors in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the following groups and nonprofit entities:
