When employees at Nexen Petroleum in Plano decided to LIVE UNITED and give back to the community, they contacted United Way about setting up a Day of Service. Initially, they thought they would do a little painting and landscaping at their local Boys & Girls Club.

Until, that is, they saw the tremendous potential for what they could bring to the club. 

"It turned into a mini Extreme Makeover," says Jeff Stas, IT manager for Nexen and the volunteer project lead.

In late April, more than 50 Nexen volunteers spent the day at the Frisco Boys & Girls Club, tackling five enhancement projects: landscaping, painting, kitchen organization, carpentry work and media room updates.

"We saw a lot of opportunity for what we could take on," Stas says.

Their work included installing five benches and a picnic table, anchoring them in concrete in the ground, and adding planters and brick edging around four trees. Several parts of the building were given a fresh coat of paint and a Nexen graphic designer created a mural in the club's cafe, depicting colorful fruits and vegetables.

Volunteers built shelves and mounted them in lockers and the children's game room. They cleaned out and organized the kitchen, including putting helpful labels on cabinets.

Inside the club's media room, Nexen volunteers installed two 50-inch plasma televisions, left over from when Nexen moved to its new facility.

"We had tons of AV equipment in our old building," Stas says. "We thought we could pull together some nice equipment to help build them a media room."

With a staff of 250 at the Nexen office in Plano, Stas says the United Way Day of Service was rewarding on many levels. In addition to supporting a United Way service provider focused on the key Education strategy of providing quality afterschool care to children in our region, the Day of Service was a unique teambuilding experience for Nexen employees.

"We had one-fifth of our work force there," he says. "People got to work with people they don't normally have a chance to interact with. You were able to see different talents of your colleagues that you wouldn't normally be able to."

The reaction by the club staff was humbling, Stas says, as they never imagined so much could be done to improve the club in one day.

"It was very gratifying for our team to hear how much they appreciated the work we did," he says. "I wouldn't be surprised if we had people who go back and volunteer."

This may have been the first United Way Day of Service volunteer project for Nexen, but Stas assures it won't be the last.

"It was really fun to watch people pull together," he says. "And we got to interact with the actual people we impact -- the ones who benefit from United Way. That was really great."