FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2012
Contact:
Donna L. Pfrommer,
EVP, Brand Management
203-339-6312
Community Leaders Honored at Celebration Event
September 24, 2012. United Way of Coastal Fairfield County honored eleven community volunteers at its Annual LIVE UNITED Celebration event on September 19th at the Inn at Longshore. This year’s award winners represent individuals, organizations and companies that have demonstrated a passion for their work and the knowledge that anyone who gives of their time can have a lasting impact on another person’s live. Speakers at the event included United Way board chair Carlos Mello, board member Anne McCrory and 2012 – 2013 Campaign Chair Susan Davis, CEO, St. Vincent’s Health Services.
Kicking off the program were second and third graders from Fox Run Elementary School in Norwalk, one of United Way’s Schools of Hope. Wearing LIVE UNITED t-shirts, the students sang two songs for the event attendees with direction from their music teach Margaret Kelley and Principal Jim Martinez.
United Way of Coastal Fairfield County’s work was highlighted through the award winners for Education, Income, and Health.
Education Award
The Education Award this year was given to two individuals who have made significant progress in the area of early literacy happen. Fred Jackson, Co-Chair of the Bridgeport Alliance for Young Children (BAYC) and George Hensinger, Chair of CT Parent Power and the Norwalk Early Childhood Council, were honored for their leadership in developing programs that engage parents, provide them with critical information about their children’s education, and improve literacy skills. Fred also serves as BAYC’s representative on the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance and is an appointed member of the Bridgeport School Readiness Council. A grandfather himself, Fred is a true believer in the promotion of early education and the health and safety of children. Since 2001, George has been involved in over 15 early care and education program. His goal is to focus his efforts toward the improvement of the well being of young children, birth to five, and is also a proud grandfather.
Income Award
Since January of 2006, David Rich has been the Executive Director of Supportive Housing Works where he has played a leadership role in developing and implementing regional and State campaigns to end homelessness by 2020. He has brokered and partnered on 18 projects with 525 units of affordable and permanent supportive housing and has launched a public-private initiative to create 1,000 units of supportive housing throughout Connecticut. In the early 2000’s, David served as Executive Director of the Mutual Housing Association of Greater New Haven where he developed and implemented a five-year strategic plan for the construction of 300 units of affordable housing with over $60 million in financing.
Health Award
Bigelow Tea is tireless when it comes to community involvement. For over 25 years, the Bigelow family and employees have given back to the communities where they work, especially in and around Fairfield, CT, the headquarters for Bigelow Tea. When Cindi Bigelow heard that the Day of Caring last year was focused on babies, she wanted to do everything she could to help, and graciously offered her time as the Healthy Baby Diaper Drive Champion. Her advocacy in the community through radio PSA’s and letters, and her leadership led to the collection of almost 50,000 diapers from 22 different companies and organizations. Under the direction of Bob Hendrick, Bigelow Tea set a goal to collect 10,000 diapers. They included all of their facilities in three different states and ended up with over 12,000 diapers collected in just 3 weeks! The entire Bigelow Team really stepped up to the plate to help give babies in our community a healthy start at life!
Corporate Philanthropy Awards
Volunteerism takes many forms and comes in all sizes and the depth and range of the companies that support United Way is remarkable. United Way of Coastal Fairfield County is honored to work with each of their 225 corporate partners. Their corporate philanthropy and social responsibility touches thousands of individuals and families in Coastal Fairfield County. There were four awards given this year to companies that were extraordinary examples of how employee and corporate giving to United Way can bring about huge community change.
The first award was to celebrate companies that developed a new business relationship with United Way of Coastal Fairfield County. Two companies were honored for their outstanding support in 2011 – 2012. Capital Power Capital Power is a power producer headquartered in Canada, with a local facility in Bridgeport. Capital Power’s vision is to be recognized as one of North America’s most respected, reliable and competitive power generators. They joined the United Way family of corporate partners by hosting their very first campaign last fall. Employee Campaign Manager Ann Flaherty embraced her role with determination and enthusiasm, and the results reflect her efforts. In keeping with this spirit of giving, the Capital Power Team came together and hosted their first Diaper Drive, collecting over 2,200 diapers to support parents in our communities who are struggling to make ends meet.
Bottomline Technologies provides cloud-based solutions to corporations, financial institutions and banks around the world. The company’s solutions are used to streamline, automate and manage processes involving payments, invoicing, global cash management, supply chain finance and transactional documents. Bottomline joined United Way’s Workplace Campaign Corporate Partners with their very first campaign in October 2011. John Kelly, General Manager of Bottomline’s Wilton location, received United Way Campaign details from their corporate headquarters in Portsmouth, NH, and appointed Beate Dayton as the Employee Campaign Manager. Beate brought lots of enthusiasm to the role and implemented several exciting campaign activities as well as special events. Bottomline also contributed to the annual Diaper Drive and are a very supportive addition to United Way.
When a company holds a United Way employee campaign, they set various goals internally with two goals that are most easily measured. The companies strive to engage all of their employees in the giving process and the understanding of how their dollars can have the greatest impact when they work together.
The first measure is to increase the level of donations given by the employees. The company that demonstrated the highest dollar increase in their campaign was Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Wilton. Founded in 1957, Enterprise Rent-A-Car has ranked highest in customer satisfaction among airport rentals in 11 out of the past 12 years. The corporate culture at Enterprise for community support was set by its founder Jack Taylor. Enterprise has put innovative ideas and thinking into the hands of their professionals, and the results have been outstanding. This year Enterprise employees set their sights on becoming a Chairman Circle partner and embraced a 100% participation goal. Chairman Circle partners are companies that raise more than $100,000 for the community through United Way. Under the leadership of Audra Paganelli, HR Generalist Manager, and Eric Stone, Regional Vice President they implemented some creative ways of raising the stakes. They completed their campaign with an increase in giving and a matching corporate gift that sent Enterprise soaring past the $100,000 mark.
The second measure most frequently set as a goal is the level of participation from the employees in the campaign. There were three companies this year honored for this achievement.
Beiersdorf, Inc. is a global skin care company that is best known for its Nivea Eucerin and Aquaphor Skin Care products. They have a long history with United Way, and have been a shining example of how a company can energize its employees and get them involved in giving back throughout the year.
The 2012 Campaign year was no exception, with Beiersdorf employees demonstrating over 100% participation in their workplace campaign. No other company offered more incentives for their employees to give, and the results were dramatic. Team Captains, like Amanda Burris, offered bagels
for breakfast, ice cream after lunch, blue jeans days, bake sales, raffle tickets for sports events, and up to four paid vacation days for participating in the workplace campaign.
Located in Stratford, Hampford Research, Inc. has built its reputation by producing high-purity specialty chemicals for the electronics, dental, cosmetics, adhesives and printing markets. Their work has been recognized for setting a standard of excellence. The Hampford Family has supported United Way for decades and has demonstrated their commitment through corporate and individual leadership
giving. HRI employees engage in a variety of volunteer and fundraising activities including holding food drives and workplace campaigns. During last year’s workplace campaign, employees from HRI went above and beyond expectations by reaching 100% participation, a 50% participation increase over the previous year.
Pepperidge Farm had a 38% increase in employee donations this year, and 99% participation in their Norwalk office due to the leadership and commitment of Pat Callaghan, President, and Director of Corporate Citizenship Ruthann Walsh. This leadership, combined with the hard work of the field sales
team and the team captains, helped to raise an impressive amount for the campaign. The campaign also included activities such as an auction with two Goldfish cracker-shaped guitars, and six parking spots were raffled off. Pepperidge Farm has a strong focus on child obesity and hunger relief, and remains committed to the children’s backpack program, which provides food to children in need over the weekends.
Corporate social responsibility is the way in which a company views their role in the community and how they invest their resources to make the area they do business and their employees live a better place. The company that received the Corporate Social Responsibility Award was Beiersdorf. Whether collecting school supplies for children in need, or holding food drives to keep local pantries well stocked, the employees at Beiersdorf are committed to supporting the community in which they live and work. They are a great corporate partner to many nonprofit organizations, and have had 100% employee participation for two consecutive years in their Beiersdorf Cares United Way Campaign. The culture of giving back begins at the top with Company President Bill Graham. Beiersdorf employees have participated in the back to school supply drive, food collections, and much more.
United Way of Coastal Fairfield County’s mission is: “Together, we mobilize our communities to improve people’s lives”. Our vision is that all at risk children in Coastal Fairfield County are successful in school and prepared for success in life. United Way of Coastal Fairfield County serves the towns of Fairfield, Bridgeport, Stratford, Westport, Trumbull, Easton, Monroe, Weston, Norwalk, Wilton, New Canaan and Darien. Find out more at our website, www.unitedwaycfc.org.
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