On Martin Luther King Day, January 17th, 2011, FastPivot gave employees the opportunity to participate in FastPivot’s 2nd Annual Service Day, which entailed giving back to the local community by volunteering in a non-profit service project.
For the second year in a row, Daphne Kirkwood, Director of Human Resources at FastPivot, and her children, volunteered for part of the afternoon at Pet Harmony. Pet Harmony is part of the Animal Compassion Network and is a local non-profit organization. The vision of Pet Harmony is to make second-chance pets everyone’s first choice.
The opportunity to volunteer at a local pet organization was not only a valuable community outreach & fulfilling for Ms. Kirkwood, but a valuable lesson to share with her children. Teaching them the importance of giving back is a life lesson that will be carried with them forever. They all spent the afternoon giving each of the dogs at Pet Harmony some good lovin’ and attention, by taking them each on a nice walk through the surrounding neighborhood.
Full of energy and wants someone to play with him – “Chance” this German Shephard mix, was a wonderful dog. The kids had a blast throwing the balls and toys to him in his cage.
Butterscotch, a super sweet golden retriever pup, melted my daughter’s heart… she was hooked on this little doggie and wants to see it go to a home. This dog was great with my kids!
Jennifer Boos, Project Manager at FastPivot split her day with two projects. First, although the Health Adventure was closed to the public for MLK day (much to my surprise), she was able to connect with the new volunteer coordinator there to discuss her ongoing interest in science-based education program volunteering. Also, last week, they wrapped up the “Blue Man Group: Making Waves” exhibit, so Ms. Boos assisted in preparing the space for the new upcoming trip to Wonderland, which will be open from January 28-May 15.
The second project was with the Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministry, which operates a facility right in Black Mountain to help the homeless and distressed people in the area. It’s been another unusually cold winter here, so Ms. Boos spent part of the day going through her own closets for some coats, hats, gloves, blankets, shirts and pants to donate to the shelter.
While I totally support the “sell to support” methods of most donation centers, I wanted these items to go directly to those folks who have very few options and likely in need of these things now more than in years past. I’ve seen first-hand how someone’s life can dramatically change due to unforeseen events (like death and unemployment) so I’m very appreciative of what we do have in our household and hope that these things that we have in abundance can help someone without. Thanks for letting me take part of my day to help the local community out. It’s great to be part of the ongoing movement to make this world a better, well-educated place.
Nikki Whited, Director of Creative Design at FastPivot decided to serve at Western Carolinian’s for Criminal Justice: Volunteer Group Project (WCCJ) for their annual “Cut the Risk” program. WCCJ’s Women-At-Risk is a community-based program helping women at risk of incarceration and who need other support services. “Cut-The-Risk” is a fundraiser for the Women-At-Risk program that takes place at area salons and spas who donated their time and services with all proceeds going to the program. The salons provided discounted services to clients ranging from $25 hair cuts to $70 hour spa services. Their hope was to raise 10-15K for their program.
I met several women at the WCCJ office to assemble gift baskets and then deliver them to participating stylists as a way to say thank you for helping out this day. We then delivered them around town to the participating salons and thanked them for their generous donation of time and resources to this cause. Thank you FastPivot for allowing me the opportunity to serve the community. This is something I really have a desire to do on a more consistent basis and this day was a great motivator and reminder of that!
FastPivot is nationally recognized custom Yahoo! Store development agency. To learn more about FastPivot, please visit us at www.FastPivot.com
