NVIDIA : NVIDIANs Assemble for 10th Annual Project Inspire

Nearly 1,650 volunteers assembled at Oak Grove High School in San Jose, Calif., last weekend for Project Inspire, our annual community service event.

Project Inspire - now in its 10th year - has grown from a one-day 500-person event to a two-day extravaganza that will see more than $500,000 worth of materials, project management services and volunteer labor put to work to improve the school, which serves more than 1,800 students.

'Project Inspire is about capturing the spirit of our company, harnessing the spirit of love and giving, and helping the community around us,' NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told hundreds of NVIDIANs, friends, family and community members gathered on Oak Grove's football field to kick off a day of work Saturday. 'It is one of the best things we do.'

Over the past decade, Project Inspire has directed more than $6.6 million to the community. NVIDIA employees, friends, families and community members have volunteered more than 62,500 hours of work. And we've reached more than 7,500 students in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This year's event was our largest yet, with the number of volunteers up 10 percent from last year's 1,500. Our work focused on visually transforming the campus of Oak Grove High School to create an inspiring learning environment for the school's students.

In addition to volunteers from NVIDIA and the community, we received support from a number of key partners. They include the East Side Union High School District, Devcon Construction, Gensler, Sares Regis, Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme, Corinthian Transportation, and DivcoWest Silicon Valley Investments.

The result is work that quickly came into focus Friday morning. Volunteers swarmed the campus to build new student seating areas; make over community spaces, like the teachers' lounge and parent resource room; paint educational and inspirational murals; and improve the school's fitness facilities.

'People care about the community,' said Sam Chehab, director of IT application development, said. 'Give them the opportunity and they'll come out.'