Making small, but important impacts in our local communities!
Kids Cancer Connection | Woodland Hills, CA
The Kids Cancer Connection (KCC) is a non-profit that provides psychosocial services to children with cancer and their families, including meal and grocery deliveries, peer counseling, and patient advocacy. KCC strives to create community, increase public awareness of childhood cancer, and build family support systems for those affected. They also create spirit-raising field trips to theme parks and opportunities for art therapy and in-hospital entertainment.
With so many programs and such a need in the community, their homebase in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles needed to expand. The planned expansion consisted of the addition of a 232-square-foot living room space at the Kid’s Cancer Connection Center. Leighton’s own Joe Roe performed a geotechnical/geologic investigation for the project site in support of the important work this non-profit provides.
Lowrey Residence, Homes for Wounded Warriors | Rancho Cucamonga, CA
For American veterans wounded in service to our country, recovering from their injuries is often just the beginning of the challenges they face when they return home. Many contend with a variety of complications from finding new ways to make a living to just getting around in spaces not adequately outfitted for their affected mobility. Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors (JAH4WW) is an organization that works to get catastrophically injured military vets into homes that are built or remodeled with their respective accessibility needs and injuries in mind.
The former NFL star and his foundation have built more than 20 homes since its founding in 2009. The first JAH4WW home in California was built in 2021 in Rancho Cucamonga for former Green Beret Sergeant Joe Lowrey. The Purple Heart recipient sustained a gunshot wound to the head while serving his third term in Afghanistan. After a month in a coma, Joe began his rehab journey and was thankfully able to return to his wife and four children in California. In tribute to his sacrifice and service, the JAH4WW foundation custom-built his family’s new home, a 2,700-square-foot, ADA-accessible, 6-bedroom house, mortgage-free.
Leighton is grateful to have had the opportunity to provide pro-bono geotechnical engineering services for such an important project and, in particular, one supporting our local veteran community. Our services included geotechnical design recommendations, and geotechnical observation and testing services during rough grading for the building pad.
9/11 Memorial Project | Fontana, CA
The City of Fontana is in the process of building a 9/11 Memorial honoring the memories of those who lost their lives. The memorial will be located within a roundabout at the intersection of Wheeler Avenue and Seville Avenue and will repurpose an existing water feature. It will also incorporate an 18’ long beam from the World Trade Center debris as a visual focal point.
Leighton provided pro-bono geotechnical exploration services to evaluate the subsurface conditions of the site to identify potential geologic and seismic hazards that may affect the project. We are honored to have been able to contribute to this new Fontana landmark and touching memorial.
