For me, volunteering is most engaging when you’re tasked with doing something you not only never had to do before but also didn’t even know needed to get done. Over the summer, the LaFleur team found two such opportunities.
LaFleur Gives Back With the Friends of Grand Rapids Parks Green Gala
In August, we supported Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and their Green Gala event. In case you aren’t familiar, the mission of Friends is to empower people to cultivate vibrant parks, trees, and green spaces in the Grand Rapids community.
A ticket to this year’s Green Gala event got you and your guests a picnic basket filled with local food and drink. Since a lot of tickets get sold, a lot of picnic baskets need to be made, and that’s where LaFleur stepped in. The LaFleur team stayed busy cutting gingham cloth and pieces of bow, creating name tags, spray-painting logos onto baskets, and more. (Also, just a quick note — if you think that spray-painting a stencil on to a curved, rigid, wooden picnic basket is a simple task, think again.)
Going Green on the Roof With WMEAC
What other kind of volunteer work makes sense during a pandemic? Outdoor work, of course. So, we partnered with the West Michigan Environmental Action Council to get some fresh air. For over 50 years, WMEAC has been using their energy and passion to create change in our communities and ensure stability in our natural resources. Much like the Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, WMEAC wanted to apply our team’s passion for volunteering in a unique way: rooftop gardening.
WMEAC’s location has a unique green roof that features living, breathing vegetation to help insulate the property and disperse rainwater runoff. As you might imagine, such a unique structure needs maintenance.
So, on a hot, sunny morning, the LaFleur team put on our face masks and gardening gloves, and we got to work weeding and trimming the WMEAC roof. It was a fun way to gather and get our hands dirty while staying socially distanced. By giving WMEAC’s innovative roof some love and care, we enabled them to stay focused on protecting our environment.
RELATED: LaFleur Gives Back By Volunteering With WMEAC and the Humane Society of West Michigan
LaFleur Remains Committed to Our Community, No Matter the Challenges
As one of the newest members of the LaFleur team (I joined as an account manager in July 2020), I found it noteworthy that we didn’t let the ongoing pandemic minimize our volunteer efforts. These weren’t the kind of volunteer opportunities that I would have thought of, but the work shined a light on the many tasks nonprofits have to accomplish with lean staff and limited resources.
Work should make you discover something new once in a while, and I was grateful to add picnic-basket engineer and rooftop-gardener to my list of skills. I look forward to volunteering more with the LaFleur team and seeing how that work will inform and invigorate our digital marketing endeavors.
LaFleur: Dedicated to Excellent Work and Community Service
At LaFleur, we are dedicated to making a difference in our community, even when times are tough.
If you want to learn more about our volunteer work, enlist our team to help with your cause, or find out how we can help your company meet your business goals, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Call us today at (888) 222-1512 or use our quick online contact form. We look forward to hearing from you!