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| Two groups of employees from our office in Bloomington, Minnesota, recently helped out the community by volunteering with Second Harvest Heartland. |
May 4, 2017 — Two employee groups from our office in Bloomington, Minnesota, recently stepped up to help the community by volunteering with Second Harvest Heartland. For their activity, 14 employees worked at two St. Paul elementary schools, where they helped welcome community members and distribute food from Second Harvest.Our Schwan’s Engagement Council group in Bloomington helped coordinate the opportunity for employees to volunteer. Members said their goal is to coordinate at least one volunteer event each quarter at Second Harvest Heartland. In the past, traditional volunteering activities with Second Harvest Heartland have included packaging and sorting food at the organization’s warehouse in Golden Valley, Minnesota.
“We were really excited to be able to try this new type of volunteer activity, which allowed us to interact directly with the end recipients,” said Meghan Shaughnessy, senior sales analyst of sales planning, who also helped with planning the volunteer activities.
While volunteering, the two groups of employees participated in setting up the distribution, sorting food, greeting clients as they arrived and handing food to clients.
Along with volunteering, our Bloomington team also donates money throughout the year to Second Harvest Heartland through the office’s jean-day program. For every $5 donated, 19 meals are provided for those in need. The Schwan’s Corporate Giving Foundation also matches the total amount raised from “jean Fridays,” meaning that 38 meals are provided for every $5 donated by employees.
Second Harvest Heartland is a Twin Cities based food bank that provides more than 77 million meals to nearly 1,000 food shelves, pantries and other partner programs serving 59 counties in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The organization helps relieve hunger not only by sourcing, warehousing and distributing food, but through data-driven thought leadership and community partnerships that help improve the region’s larger hunger relief system.
