Written by Jon Stojan
Five years after announcing its Phoenix location and one year into volume chip production, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has constructed more than fabrication facilities in north Phoenix. The company distributed charitable donations to local nonprofits in 2025 while hosting food distributions, blood drives, and volunteer events on its 1,129-acre campus: activities that position the foreign chipmaker as an established community participant rather than an isolated industrial tenant.
From Construction Site to Community Hub
TSMC's Arizona campus now functions as a recurring venue for charitable activities beyond semiconductor manufacturing. Borderlands Produce Rescue holds monthly Saturday distributions at the site, where Phoenix residents collect up to 70 pounds of rescued fruits and vegetables for a donation. The drive-through format emerged from pandemic-era adaptations but persists due to logistics at an active manufacturing campus.These produce markets have redistributed more than 70,000 pounds of food to local families since launching, diverting grocery-rejected produce from Arizona landfills. Borderlands Produce Rescue, which operates 30 redistribution sites statewide, diverts between 20 and 30 million pounds of produce annually across its network.
Blood donation drives bring another stream of community members onto the property. An on-site collection conducted with the American Red Cross of Arizona and New Mexico yielded donations sufficient to potentially assist 186 hospital patients. Many participants were first-time donors among the facility's workforce of approximately 3,000 employees.
Greg Bailey, TSMC Arizona's Director of Facilities, described the company's approach in an internal interview: "One of our big missions is being a good corporate steward of the natural resources that are out there." Bailey oversees environmental initiatives, including an industrial water reclamation plant scheduled to achieve 90% water recycling by 2028, but his portfolio extends to community engagement programs, including the produce rescue partnership and a planned composting operation for cafeteria food waste.
Investing in the Nearest Neighbors
Geographic proximity shaped several funding decisions. Deer Valley Unified School District, which borders the TSMC campus and enrolls children of company employees, received a donation for career exploration facilities at Desert Sky Middle School. The Title I campus serves 580 students, predominantly from low-income families."We're helping kids connect what they learn here to what they can do later. Partnerships like this make that possible," Principal Chad Larter told SM Daily Journal.A company statement characterized the school district as "an obvious recipient for one of our first community grants," noting that employees and their families live, work, and attend schools in surrounding neighborhoods. The YMCA of the Valley of the Sun received charitable funding, with officials observing that TSMC families frequently use gyms and afterschool programs at the branch nearest the Phoenix campus. A separate donation funded senior citizen programming through the same organization.
Bridging Taiwanese and Arizona Communities
Corporate stewardship for TSMC Arizona includes cultural diplomacy. The company sponsored the fourth annual Double Ten Day celebration at Arizona State University's West Valley campus on October 4, 2025, funding a 150-drone light show that rendered Taiwan's flag, Taipei 101, and a Formosan black bear against the Phoenix sky.More than 7,000 attendees gathered for the event, which featured food vendors, cultural performances, and a night market. Over 1,000 TSMC staff and their families participated. Phoenix Vice Mayor Ann O'Brien addressed the crowd directly: "I proudly stand with the people of Taiwan. Tonight is about friendship, community, and cultural exchange," the Taipei Times reported.
About 30,000 Taiwanese nationals reside in the Phoenix area, and TSMC's arrival has accelerated that population's growth. The Double Ten celebration, now entering its fifth year, predates TSMC's production launch but has expanded alongside the company's workforce.
The Taipei Culture Camp, operated through Phoenix Sister Cities, received funding for summer programming that introduces children to Taiwanese traditions. Phoenix and Taipei have maintained a sister-city relationship since 1979.
Creating Local Career Pathways
TSMC's apprenticeship commitment addresses a corporate need, trained technicians for semiconductor manufacturing, while offering debt-free career entry to Arizona residents. The structure reflects mutual benefit: the company gains workers, and participants gain credentials without tuition costs."We want our employees to have their entire career at TSMC. We will invest, we are investing, and we want them to continue to train and grow," Rose Castanares, President of TSMC Arizona, told Arizona PBS.The first cohort of 10 apprentices began coursework at Rio Salado College in August 2025, studying semiconductor industry fundamentals and IT systems. Educational partners include Estrella Mountain Community College, Northern Arizona University, Grand Canyon University, and Western Maricopa Education Center.
Participant backgrounds illustrate the program's reach. Mark Toro, a Phoenix native, joined TSMC in 2022 at age 19 after completing Maricopa Community Colleges' Semiconductor Technician Quick Start program. He now serves as a backup lead technician. Nolan Cottingham, 22, left his job at In-N-Out Burger to enter the apprenticeship. "Being able to have a career in an advanced industry with zero debt is something I'm really, really thankful for," he told Axios Phoenix.
Jennifer De La Cruz, a 25-year-old mother of two, discovered TSMC through Fresh Start Women's Foundation after working at Wendy's. She described the transition in an October interview: "All the guys took me under their wing and they've been helping me with everything that I don't understand." Fresh Start Women's Foundation received a donation from TSMC and now serves as a recruitment pipeline, connecting women from its network of 30,000 annual participants to semiconductor industry opportunities.
Supporting Existing Charitable Infrastructure
Rather than establishing proprietary programs, TSMC channeled funds through established Phoenix nonprofits. St. Vincent de Paul received a charitable donation, and employees participated in Turkey Tuesday, the nation's largest single-day turkey collection. St. Mary's Food Bank, which distributes food to approximately 250,000 Arizonans daily, also received a donation.Keys to Change, operating a 13-acre downtown Phoenix campus with meals, medical services, and employment assistance for homeless residents, received a charitable donation. The organization offers volunteer opportunities that TSMC employees can access.
The Arizona Community Foundation received charitable funds, split between housing and homelessness initiatives and wraparound services for TSMC apprentices. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego established the apprentice support fund and invited TSMC to join Intel on a scholarship selection committee, a collaborative model that integrates the chipmaker into existing civic structures.
Youth Engagement Through Employee Involvement
TSMC's 2025 summer internship cohort, approximately 200 students from 60 American universities, participated in community service alongside their technical training. In July, interns joined children at Boys and Girls Clubs of the Valley to build and race small robots at the organization's Robson Branch.The organization received funding from TSMC in 2025. A separate event at JA BizTown in Tempe paired interns with children for financial literacy exercises in a simulated town environment.
Thirty employees ran in the Phoenix Police Foundation Honor Run, which raises funds for families of officers killed in the line of duty. TSMC served as an event sponsor. During the 2024 holiday season, employees and construction partners donated over 800 toys to the Salvation Army's Forgotten Angel program.
Science Education as Long-Term Investment
The Arizona Science Center received funding, coinciding with TSMC's participation in SEMIquest, an exhibit running October 2025 through January 2026 that introduces students in grades 7–12 to semiconductor careers. The company's involvement places its brand before future potential employees while supporting a regional educational institution.Additional STEM grants included charitable funding to the Musical Instrument Museum for programming connecting music and scientific principles, the Phoenix Symphony's Mind Over Music curriculum, and the SciTech Institute for statewide festivals and school visits.
Act One received funding to deliver virtual reality educational content to schools lacking field trip access to cultural venues, including tribal communities.
The Center for the Future of Arizona, an ASU-affiliated research organization, received charitable funding for semiconductor career pathway development in public schools. TGEN, the Translational Genomics Research Institute, received funding for work with tribal communities, continuing a relationship initiated when TSMC headquarters funded COVID-19 vaccination outreach to underserved Arizona populations.
Alignment With Parent Company Values
TSMC Arizona's philanthropy follows the framework of the TSMC Charity Foundation, established in Taiwan in 2017. The foundation operates under four pillars: caring for the elderly, promoting filial piety, caring for the disadvantaged, and protecting the environment. Arizona operations adapted these priorities, adding emphasis on talent development and education suited to a workforce-building phase.The Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation received a charitable donation for wraparound services, childcare, transportation, textbooks, enabling students to complete technical training. The investment addresses barriers that prevent working adults from pursuing credentials, a practical obstacle the company's workforce pipeline must overcome.
Quantifying Community Presence
The charitable funds distributed across 2025 reached more than 20 organizations spanning food security, education, workforce development, cultural programming, and direct services. Monthly produce distributions, blood drives, and volunteer events bring community members onto TSMC property throughout the year.Employee participation extends the company's presence beyond financial contributions. Staff members donate blood, run charity races, collect toys, and mentor youth, activities that create personal connections between the Taiwanese chipmaker's workforce and Phoenix residents.
Whether these efforts translate into sustained community goodwill depends partly on TSMC's operational conduct in the coming years. The company projects employing 6,000 workers across three fabrication facilities by decade's end, a scale that will test relationships with neighbors, municipal services, and regional resources, including water supply.
For now, the 2025 record establishes a baseline: TSMC Arizona has moved beyond construction-phase promises into documented community investment, hosting charitable events on its campus and funding local organizations through their existing structures rather than parallel corporate initiatives.
