These past few months at WhiteWave are inspirational and a good reminder of what the holidays are all about. And no, I haven’t drunk the Silk Nog; I am truly inspired by the generosity of my WhiteWave colleagues and what we’ve been able to do, collectively, to make the holidays a little brighter for those in our communities who are less fortunate.
WhiteWave has been very fortunate to have a good year in spite of a challenging economy. So I was pleased to learn that we decided to scale back our holiday party a bit for the second year by giving some of the money we’d normally spend on it to Community Food Share (CFS) – one of our primary non-profit partners who help fight hunger in our area.
The cool thing is we were still able to have a great party to celebrate 2010 and all of our accomplishments, but this small sacrifice will help make a big difference in the lives of those who need our help. In fact, our donation will allow CFS to provide an additional 100,000 meals to Boulder County residents this holiday season. Not to mention, we’ve donated more than $150,000 and 1.5 million pounds of product to CFS so far this year and have volunteered hundreds of hours. Working for a food company, it feels pretty great to know that we play a role in ensuring food security in our own community.
In addition, over the last few weeks, our headquarters lobby has been literally busting at the seams with items collected for local shelters and non-profits. Some of our activities have included:
- Holding a coat and blanket drive to benefit Coats for Colorado and the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless
- Adopting families and children for the Emergency Family Assistance Association, Toys for Tots and Share-A-Gift holiday giving programs
- Sponsoring 120 children from the Mercy Housing “Adopt a Child” program, to extend our holiday giving reach into Denver
- Holding a company-wide raffle (with chance to win front-row parking and snow removal in December) to benefit Attention Homes. One of our execs won and opened the space to a daily silent auction to raise additional funds. (Unfortunately, this year has not been the best to win snow removal, as that would in fact require snow; but in theory, I love this idea!)
In the end, it’s all about the holiday spirit, which I’m pleased to report is alive and well at WhiteWave. Not that such outpouring of generosity is contained to the holidays around here… There is a lot of giving and volunteering that happens here throughout the year. But I can’t help but feel an extreme sense of pride for what we were able to do to help those in our communities have a safer, warmer, happier and healthier holiday.
What has inspired YOU this holiday season? I’d love to hear your stories.
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