11 May Giving Back – ReloTrans in the Local Community

Running a successful business is about more than the service we provide on a daily basis. While customer service and client satisfaction is paramount to our success, it’s also critical that we foster a culture of value and respect amongst our team members and within our local community. Our ReloTrans ‘Give Back’ program provides our team members with the opportunity to volunteer in local community based programs during work hours.

Recently, as part of the ‘Give Back’ program our team engaged with the Elder Services of Merrimack Valley(ESMV) organization. ESMV is a private non-profit agency serving elders and disabled adults who reside in Northeast Massachusetts. Established in 1974, ESMV’s mission is to support an individual’s desire to make their own decisions, secure their independence, and remain living in the community safely.

One of the many ESMV programs is the Elder Brown Bag Program. Partnering with the Greater Boston Food Bank, ESMV makes weekly deliveries of perishable and non-perishable food items to over 3,000 low-income elders in need in 23 cities and towns. ESMV staff, along with individual and corporate volunteers like those from our ReloTrans team, coordinates the packing and delivery of the food items, which is no small task.

ReloTrans team members volunteer at ESMV’s Brown Bag Program site at the Silver Hill Horace Mann Charter School in Haverhill. This is actually ESMV’s second Brown Bag Program site in Haverhill and it was opened in December 2014 because the first site had reached its maximum capacity of 750 bags. Currently the Silver Hill site packs and distributes 320 bags each month and ESMV is actively accepting new applications so this number is expected to grow.

This initiative has truly been a win-win for our team and for the ESMV organization. ESMV receives the extra hands they need to coordinate and facilitate this incredibly valuable community program and ReloTrans team members get the personal satisfaction of helping serve the local community during a few hours out of the office.

Many businesses shy away from offering a community based volunteer program as part of their employee benefits because of logistics and management, but the value far outweighs the risks. Keep it simple and find the right community partners and the team will do the rest. And, you will be rewarded both as a business owner/manager and human being.