Staff in Columbus, Highland, and Tampa didn’t let COVID-19 stand in the way of volunteering and providing holiday gifts to people in need. Check out the details.

Tampa Volunteers At Holiday Tent

Our Tampa team organized a Day of Service project December 9 at the Metropolitan Ministries’ Holiday Tent in Tampa. Metropolitan Ministries is a community organization formed by several churches and nonprofits to help the less fortunate. The Holiday Tent is the organization’s marquee outreach event serving 30,000+ families in need of food and toys.

The entire Tampa staff attended, including snowbird guest Rich Zielinski and his wife. With Covid-19 restrictions in place, the Holiday Tent served as a warehouse drive-through with volunteer “shoppers” grabbing toys and food for the customers in need. This year’s tasks included sorting toys, decorating trees, taking inventory, making toy stocking bags, and evaluating donated toys that had some damage. To the team’s surprise, a local TV station came. They took pictures, video, and short interviews. It was only one afternoon, but the folks at Metropolitan Ministries were very grateful for our help! Metropolitan Ministries’ leadership was especially appreciative of our company’s $1,000 donation to help them buy more toys to reach their anticipated 100,000 toy demand. The organization saw a 40% increase in need for assistance in 2020. Overall, it was an awesome team effort to give back to our community!

A few event stats:

• 20,918 number of toys in the Holiday Tent on our Day of Service
• 12 American Structurepoint volunteers
• 1 team = PRICELESS (1990s MasterCard commercial anyone?)

Columbus Donates Gifts and Food

Columbus staffers continued their support of fulfilling Christmas wish lists of children ages 18 months through 15 years old via the St. Vincent Family Center’s Adopt-A-Family Program. Four families with five children each for a total of 20 children received gifts from American Structurepoint. Shopping went virtual thanks to COVID-19. Tay Lane placed orders via Amazon totaling approximately $2,300. Gifts were delivered directly to the families’ homes. In all, the program matched 800 children with special holiday gifts this season. Employees also participated in a construction industry food drive with Pepper Construction that benefited the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Employees donated about $400 worth of food items and American Structurepoint’s Community Service program donated another $1,500 to the food bank.

Highland Provides Gifts Galore for Head Start Agency

Highland employees came through once again for children served by the Lake Ridge Head Start agency in Gary, Indiana. Twelve employees played shoppers for 20 children. The Head Start program promotes school readiness for children under age 5 from lower-income families through education, health, and social services. Most of the recipients are foster children who would not receive gifts this season if not for the generosity of the Highland employees.