On Feb. 1, Comcast hosted an event in Scotts Valley to support the community and made a $50,000 donation to the United Way of Santa Cruz County and Community Bridges of Santa Cruz to help rebuild from January’s historic rainstorms that caused massive flooding, downed trees and landslides.
“The Santa Cruz area has suffered so much from the recent storms — the devastation has been heart wrenching to experience and witness,” said Ray Cancino, CEO of Community Bridges. “This partnership and financial support from Comcast is coming at the ideal time and will provide important, valuable resources as the community strives to get back on its feet.”
The event included the Xfinity Experience trailer, which has a 12×18-foot LED screen on which the movies Sing 2 and Minions: Rise of Gru were screened.
The trailer enabled free WiFi access and power so attendees could get online and charge their devices. Local restaurants provided free food and beverages to attendees.
“It was so nice to enable this hard-hit community to take a break, come together and support each other, while having some fun.” said Keisha Browder, CEO, United Way of Santa Cruz County. “Comcast’s financial contribution to our community will help us not only expand our recovery efforts but also help us rebuild from this catastrophic disaster.”
During the epic storms, which caused epic damages, Comcast said its network and engineering technicians monitored the impacts and worked diligently to restore Xfinity and Comcast Business services as quickly and safely as possible.
Also, Comcast made available for free use by anyone its 147,000 public Xfinity WiFi hotspots throughout Northern and Central California to help residents and emergency personnel stay connected during the rainstorms.