The list of reasons why I came to work at The Fearey Group were pretty traditional – great culture, solid work-life balance and fun clients, to name a few. But the company raised the bar when I spent one of my first days on the job volunteering with coworkers at a local charity.
Fearey understands the need for businesses to give back to the community and to that end, our office will spend one afternoon each month volunteering with a different charity.
For February, we chose the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) in Seattle.
RMH houses and takes care of families with children who are undergoing treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital. The organization makes sure families never wonder if they’ll have a place to stay or food on the table.
It’s the latter where we came into play, providing and preparing a meal as part of the volunteer dinner group.
The RMH can accommodate 114 families so our office was in for a full afternoon. To help with the task, Fearey invited our friends from The Moose Group, a local John L. Scott office. We brought all the ingredients to make BBQ chicken sandwiches, salad, broccoli, fresh fruit and most importantly, ice cream sundaes.
As a newbie, I really appreciated the chance to get to know my coworkers as we paired off and tackled different aspects of meal prep. But by far, the best part was interacting with the families as we served dinner.
One after another, parents came through to get food for their families and each one expressed their gratitude for us being there. They didn’t know us, we didn’t know them. But for just a few moments, we touched their lives. Our hope is we gave them one less thing to worry about, if even for an evening.
While we may have impacted the parents, it was the kids who impacted us. There’s nothing more humbling than seeing a kiddo who you can only assume is facing serious health issues, come bounding through your line with an ear-to-ear smile because they heard there was ice cream… with whipped cream… and chocolate sauce… and sprinkles. It’s a good reminder of that old cliché – it’s the little things that matter most.
We wrapped up the evening with kitchen clean up, smiling and chatting about our interactions with the families. The power of giving is infectious; it was clear every person had been impacted. I walked out the door feeling proud to work at a company that values its community and employees enough to make these events a priority. I’m hopeful more companies will soon fall in line.
Stay tuned on our blog as we head to a new charity each month. If you know somewhere we should volunteer or if you’d like to join us…drop us a note!