Community Service Updates
March Madness Party
Winners of the Raffle Mania “March Madness” package got to spend time with Jack Lashenik and Ben Braun, drinking adult beverages and watching early brackets of NCAA men’s basketball. Congratulations to Michelle Self, Joe Griffith, Melody Niquette, Greg Henneke, Karl Krukenberg, and Adam Logeman. Also in the photo are Mike Gray, our corporate insurance vendor, and new Florida project development director Nick Harrison.
Munificent Madness
The basketball theme continued with this year’s brackets for charity game, where those whose teams made it to the Final Four got to direct GiveBack funds to the charity of their choice. Participants were randomly matched up with the 64 teams, then sat back and let all those very tall college students do all the hard work. When the dust settled, the Final Four came down to the tournament favorite, Villanova winning it all, giving us the following winners and the charities that will benefit from their generosity.
Kelly Canter was the lucky one having Villanova. She designated her $400 first-place prize to Hope Center Indy, whose mission is to be a Christ-centered residential campus committed to healing the personal and building the professional lives of women who are coming out of human trafficking.
Eric Wolverton (Michigan) finished second, and gave his $300 prize to Haven House, a 24-hour emergency shelter in Hammond, Indiana. It provides multiple services to victims of domestic/sexual assault including counseling, a crisis telephone hotline, rape recovery support, and court advocacy services.
Anitra Lewis (Kansas) finished third, netting $150 for the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church Cancer Ministry in Indianapolis that works to support individuals and their families dealing with cancer.
Rosemarie Kelly (Loyola- Chicago) finished fourth, and gave her $150 winnings to Teachers’ Treasures, a “free store for teachers” that provides classroom supplies for Marion County students in need.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated!
March Donations
In March, we helped two American Structurepoint families, offering financial assistance to one employee dealing with medical issues and another who had a flooded home. We’re quieter about it than we are with our donations to outside organizations (for privacy reasons), but the GiveBack team regularly offers emergency assistance to employees. While it’s absolutely OK to self-nominate, most of our requests seem to come from employees on behalf of their coworkers. Either way, if you’re aware of an “in-house” need, please bring it to the attention of Ben Braun or Michele Collins.
Broadening our Horizons
One of the best parts about being part of the GiveBack board is learning about all the various charitable/community service events and organizations our employees are involved with. Because the GiveBack Fund is employee funded and directed, we’re always looking for ways to support the good work our employees are already doing in our communities. In March we met with representatives from three organizations recommended to us by employees.
- The Indianapolis chapter of Girls, Inc. serves girls ages 6-18, providing programming in local schools to give girls extra opportunities for learning about STEM and career awareness, healthy living/body positivity, and interpersonal/problem solving skills. We’re excited about the work they do, and we plan to make a donation in the near future.
- Pack Away Hunger was recommended to us by a number of employees who participated in their events. Those of you who have participated in the Million Meals events will find their process familiar: volunteers form production lines to package rice and grains along with nutritional supplements to help feed families both here in Indianapolis and abroad. We’re doing the groundwork to be able to schedule a packing event in our Indy office later this year.
- Rebuilding Together Indianapolis was introduced to us by Kathleen Day, who serves on their board. They target a different neighborhood each year and organize a day of home repairs in that neighborhood to make residents’ houses safe and comfortable. We made a $500 donation to support their spring 2018 efforts in the SEND-Twin-Aire neighborhood just southeast of downtown Indianapolis.
If you have ideas for a new way for the GiveBack program to support our communities, be sure to talk to a board member. We’re always looking for more ways to help the helpers, and we count on you to bring opportunities to our attention!
Save the Date – Panel Build 2018
Mark your calendars for Thursday, July 26. Our 2017 Day of Service with Habitat for Humanity was a great success, and we’re looking forward to our 2018 event! People of literally every experience level are welcome to help pound nails into wood and frame a house right in our parking lot. Last year, Habitat staff were hugely impressed with the creative problem solving and QA/QC skills demonstrated by our investigative and CI team members, but even the least skilled volunteer was greatly appreciated. Even if you have no hammering skills to speak of when you sign up, you’ll be greatly improved by the end of your shift! The chili cookoff is the next day (July 27), and we’ll leave the frame up in our parking lot so that all your client guests can appreciate your hard work!