Ayers Gets Philanthropic
In honor of National Philanthropy Day, I want to take some time to highlight Ayers’ community service initiative and talk about how we got here.
It’s difficult to dedicate resources to finding and coordinating community service opportunities when the bulk of your employees spend most of their time out in the field, working long days and unconventional hours. But since our in-office staff has grown, and with the debut of our Purpose initiative at the beginning of this year, we’ve redoubled our efforts to make an impact on our community.
e gave our employees a survey to ask what kinds of causes meant the most to them, and started working from there. Since August, we’ve launched four separate campaigns in addition to our existing participation in the Adopt-a-Highway program.
1. Big Brothers/Big Sisters School Supply Drive
In August, we held a school supply drive as part of our summer-long Team Challenge. We worked with Big Brothers/Big Sisters Capital Region here in Lansing to collect the items most in-demand. In the end, after some friendly competition between a few members of our production team that involved last minute deliveries of boxes of notebooks, we collected over 500 items and dropped them off at the BB/BS office before the start of the school year.
2. Pink Week
Throughout the last week of October, we held mini-fundraisers to raise money for breast cancer research. We wore pink all week, and occasionally just carried around balloons if we hadn't. The office was littered with pink balloons, pink cookies, some yellow cookies that I still don’t quite understand, and small items like pink pens and bracelets for purchase. Many of us have friends and loved ones who have battled breast cancer, so this was a cause near and dear to our hearts. We were happy to raise over $220 during the week.
3. Sustainable Home Project
We were approached to help with a collaboration between the youth leadership team from Fenner Nature Center in Lansing and the MSU Department of Community Sustainability for a sustainable home project that I have been referring to as the Tiny House Build (they have since corrected me on my terminology).
Ayers donated the entirety of the 100 wooden pallets needed for the project, as well as provided use of our tent to shelter food. This especially came in handy on the Sunday of the build, as it rained and sleeted all day. We met the volunteers both mornings to put up the tent and drop off hot chocolate, and on this past Sunday afternoon multiple member of the Ayers team were on hand to help with the build.
For our first big community volunteer project, it's fitting that there was a home construction theme. The wealth of knowledge among our employees is huge and everyone showed up with tools and a positive attitude and really got the project heading in the right direction.
The exhibit will be a permanent fixture at the nature center, with future youth teams adding to it to create a completely sustainable system.
4. Toys for Tots
To close out the year, Ayers is partnering with the Home Builders Association of Lansing for the annual Toys for Tots drive. We’ve only been collecting toys for two days, but they’re already piling up in our donation boxes. Ryan is especially excited about this pink unicorn.
We’ll be collecting toys through the first week of December so more children can have a happier Christmas.
It has been so exciting getting our community service initiative off the ground, and we’ll only go up from here. We believe that our actions - good or bad - create a ripple effect in the lives of our employees and customers and in their communities. By taking an active part in the communities we serve, we hope to create positive ripples in homes, neighborhoods, and lives.
Here’s to 2018!
