The meaning of corporate citizenship is being transferred from the boardroom to the streets and, starting today, eight secondary schools will join forces with nine charities for a month-long project.

Leading reinsurer PartnerRe Ltd. has launched its second "Dollars For Hours: Youth and Community in Partnership" project. It was started by the company one year ago, with the aim to "pay it forward".

Additionally, PartnerRe will donate $20,000 to each school, a total of $160,000, with the requirement that school teams donate 1,600 hours of their free time in the name of charity.

"One hundred and sixty thousand dollars felt about right — we're a large company and last year was a good year for PartnerRe," CEO Patrick Thiele told The Royal Gazette.

"We felt we should at least give back at least a portion of that money to Bermuda, which has been a wonderful home and a wonderful host for the company," he added.

Talking about the "pay it forward" idea, Mr. Thiele laid out the definitive principles his company's mission is founded on. "It was a way to try to demonstrate that if you do something good you can actually push it forward to one level to another," he stated.

"Obviously, for something like this, you want to get something more than just putting dollars into the system, you'd like to have at least one or two points of impact.

"So we thought that the combination of the community, as represented by the various charities and education system, would in fact 'pay it forward' — you get a double and positive impact. "Education is important to PartnerRe and as a Bermudian company staffed primarily by Bermudians, we have a real interest in Bermuda, its people and in particular, its young people."

Depending on the response of this year's initiative, which is expected to remain positive, the company will decide wether or not to continue it again next year, Mr. Thiele said.

Providing multi-line reinsurance to insurance companies globally, PartnerRe, through its subsidiaries, operates alternative risk products that include weather and credit protection, including financial and industrial services.

The company's total revenues last December were $4.2 billion and had $15.7 billion in total assets.

This year, groups of pupils aged 14 to 18 from CedarBridge Academy, Saltus Grammar School, Somersfield Academy, The Berkeley Institute, Bermuda High School, Bermuda Institute, Warwick Academy and Mount Saint Agnes Academy are taking part in the scheme.

Charities involved are — Bermuda National Trust, Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), The Sunshine League, Bermuda Audubon Society, WindReach Recreational Village, Hope Homes, Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre and PRIDE Bermuda.

As an example of the hard work that went in, three teachers and seven pupils from CedarBridge mobilised last year to create a mural at the WindReach Recreational Village, which serves special needs children. The design was guided by artist Manuel Palacio.

Each school is teamed up with a charity, to work together in selecting an area of need in the community. Together, talents and manpower are put to work.

WindReach executive director Lance Furbert, was delighted to hear that a CedarBridge team would be again working with the centre to create gardening tables.

"Last year they did a tremendous job with the mural they created on the wall behind our playground," Mr. Furbert said. "The mural has been a tremendous asset to the park, it's colourful, the children here absolutely love it and the actual design illustrates special needs children, I think that's one of the nicest things about it."

Mr. Furbert revealed the final design took everyone a number of weeks, which resulted in a sense of deep appreciation for the amount of work that went into it and the end result.

"For this year's project the CedarBridge students will be creating accessible gardens," Mr. Furbert added. "Sort of like table top gardens. The team will be putting them together and planting them.