Although our entire senior management team embraces our community service initiatives, their effectiveness is due more to our employees, who originate and participate in these programs.
Many of our programs are focused on the holiday season, in an effort to bring comfort during what is often a challenging time of year for those in need.
-
ADOPT-A-CHILD: We collaborate with a local Department of Social Services to identify dozens of children in the community we work who are in need—some transitioning out of dangerous homes, others waiting for adoption. We create a star for each individual, with their holiday wishes spelled out. Most simply ask for life’s basics—socks, warm coat, clean sheets. Some also wish for a simple toy to bring joy—a roll-over puppy, a Herbie movie. Our employees adopt one or more of these youngsters by taking their star and fulfilling their wishes. Since we began this program three years ago, we have steadily increased the number of kids we can help, and have never failed to support all those given to us.
-
LAZARUS HOUSE: We host an annual company-wide clothing, basics, and food drive to benefit this organization, which has been fighting poverty since 1983 from its base in Lawrence, MA—one of the poorest areas in the country, and the poorest in New England. Our last drive yielded nearly 50 bags of essentials to aid this Good Shepherd center.
Other programs are focused off-holiday season, in an effort to provide year-round support.
FUTURES IN EDUCATION: Supporting organizations that work to provide
less fortunate children with a good education is an important part of
our company culture. We are a proud sponsor of the Futures in
Education Foundation, an initiative of the Diocese of Brooklyn. This
non-profit organization is helping to ensure the continuance of the
Catholic schools in Brooklyn and Queens by providing tuition assistance
and program support to the neediest of students and schools. Their
“Angel” initiative empowers individuals, groups and corporations to
directly impact the life of an at-risk youngster by helping to keep
them enrolled in the Catholic school where they can flourish. Every
dollar contributed to this program goes directly towards the cost of
tuition for a less advantaged student, opening up a world of hope and
opportunity.
-
USED ELECTRONICS: Ours is a business that requires our employees to have access to the latest personal computing products. So every time we go through a technology refresh, we see to it that PCs are not sold, but rather refurbished with current Word and Excel applications, and then donated to community centers with active job training programs. Over the years, this initiative has helped ensure that hundreds of unemployed people facing many barriers to employment gain proficiency in highly marketable computer skills.
-
USED FURNITURE AND OFFICE EQUIPMENT: To help provide community centers the infrastructure they need to carry out job training, we have donated for many years a variety of used furniture as we make upgrades—desks, chairs, file cabinets, dividers—as well as in-demand office equipment—faxes, copiers, and telephones.
-
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY: Our employees donated time and materials at a local Habitat affiliate in one of Boston’s poorest inner-city neighborhoods. Our efforts, coupled with those of scores of other volunteer companies transformed what had been an uninhabitable house to decent shelter for one family. We expanded our support of this worthwhile organization in December, 2008—foregoing our customary holiday gift baskets to respected customers and partners, and making instead a comparable-cash donation to help fund homes for combat-disabled veterans and surviving families of veterans.
Perhaps our most innovative community service initiatives have come from unlikely programs—programs for which we challenged ourselves with the question—How can we evolve this company-centric project to one benefiting the community around us?
-
BUILD A BIKE: Our sales management leadership was developing a team-building exercise as part of its annual meeting. The exercise was to pool people who seldom worked with one another into a team that had to accomplish some objective. Those best meeting the objective were to be rewarded with an item of value. Discussion of the reward quickly turned away from golf clubs and gift cards, when one of our sales reps suggested that our teams build bikes and gift them to needy children. We worked with a local Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization to do just that—and watched with pleasure the joy we all shared with 20 boys and girls who each got the bike of their dreams.
-
GIFT AN IPOD: For over four years, we have created promotional mailers—approximately one each quarter—geared to achieving in-office meetings with highly qualified prospects. We incent these meetings with various offers, most commonly video iPods, which are always in strong demand. Every mailing offers recipients a donation to the charity of their choice in lieu of the iPod. To date we have had approximately 2,500 meetings with prospects. Our informal research tells us that of those accepting the iPod, a significant percentage directly gift them to charity, or sell them on eBay and donate their proceeds to charity.
Fact: In an average year, we now support a dozen
community service programs—a number that is
steadily increasing, as is employee participation in such programs.
For more information or answers to your questions about our Company, please take a moment to fill out our 