When November comes around, many Americans think of Thanksgiving, gratitude, and opportunities to give back. Our company has a longstanding tradition created by Simpson Strong-Tie founder, Barclay Simpson, that ties into one of the company values #8: Give Back. Every year in November, Simpson Strong-Tie celebrates giving back with our Do What You Can Day. On that day, our branches organize employee activities partnering with charitable nonprofits. Our many branches and warehouses stepped up this year and did their part in supporting their communities. Check out our employees’ efforts and look at the various projects they participated in for this Do What You Can Day.
Location: Atlanta, GA
Organization: Habitat for Humanity & MUST Ministries
Event: Picnic table for Habitat for Humanity and Mobile Cooler for Must Ministries
The employees at our Atlanta Warehouse worked on two projects this year. They built picnic tables for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that helps people in your community and around the world build or improve a place they can call home. They also helped MUST Ministries, a nonprofit organization that addresses the basic needs of individuals, families, and children. Their mission is serving their neighbors in need … transforming lives and communities.
Location: Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Organization: Christian Island Elementary School
Event: Making care packages
The folks in Brampton, Ontario, lent a helping hand in putting together care packages for the children at Christian Island Elementary School. This school is committed to providing a positive learning environment for children; one where parents and teachers are encouraged to become active partners in helping each student achieve his or her own potential for excellence.
Location: Chandler, AZ
Organization Feed My Starving Children
Event: Packing food boxes
At Chandler, we were able to help with packing 126 boxes of food to feed kids in need. That’s enough to provide 4,032 meals! Although it was a smaller group working there, they took well-deserved pride in their contribution.
Location: Columbus, OH
Organization: Wine To Water
Event: Building water filtration kits
Employees from our Columbus, Ohio location participated in “Do What You Can Day” by building water filter kits for the nonprofit organization Wine To Water. These kits will be sent to communities in need of clean water.
Location: Gallatin, TN
Organization: Wine To Water
Event: Building water filtration kits
Our employees from our Gallatin, Tennessee branch participated in giving back by building water filter kits for the nonprofit organization Water To Wine. These water filter kits will help provide clean water to communities in need.
Location: High Point, NC
Organization: Habitat for Humanity and the West End Community Center
Event: Building picnic tables
To give back, the employees at High Point spent their day building picnic benches for Habitat for Humanity and the West End Community Center. This local community center’s goal is to serve the community by keeping families healthy, educating young people, providing residents with job training and much more.
Location: Houston Warehouse
Organization: Team Rubicon
Event: Building picnic tables
At the Houston warehouse, the team worked hard on building picnic tables for Team Rubicon. This nonprofit utilizes the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams. Founded in 2010, Team Rubicon has deployed across the United States and around the world to provide immediate relief to those impacted by disasters and humanitarian crises.
Location: Inver Grove Heights, MN
Organization: Local neighborhood and Wine To Water
Event: Food drive and building water filtration kits
For Inver Grove Heights, we did a food drive. We got the neighborhood involved and collected almost 600 lbs of food. We also participated with Columbus making 10 Wine To Water filter kits.
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Organization: Local homeless shelter
Event: Building picnic tables for a homeless shelter
To help a local homeless shelter in Jacksonville, the employees from this warehouse came together and built picnic tables to donate. Homeless shelters are essential to the community as they are provider of services, shelter, and housing opportunities to the homeless and those at risk of homelessness.
Location: Jessup, MD
Organization: Wine To Water
Event: Water Filter kit
At Jessup, our employees were hard at work building water filtration kits for the nonprofit, Water To Wine. This organization believes when clean water flows, life begins to thrive. Having access to clean water is essential to saving time, improving health and opening the flood-gates of possibilities for communities.
Location: Kansas City, KS
Organization: Lucky 13 Rescue
Event: Built doghouses
We built five doghouses for the Lucky 13 pet rescue in Kansas City. They are an organization that helps distribute doghouses to outdoor pets to help shelter them and keep them warm. They are going to use these doghouses as fund raisers to raffle off to raise money for their organization. We almost completed five houses and will finish them the week of Thanksgiving with paint and trim and work on getting them donated. It was a little bigger of a task than I thought it would be to get it knocked out all in one day. We had salespeople come in on the weekend and help precut and with the combined efforts of the warehouse and sales team, we got everything cut and almost completely assembled. It was a fun day working together. We hope to donate these shortly after Thanksgiving.
Location: Kapolei, Hawaii
Organization: Hawaii Foodbank
Event: Nourishing Ohana
Continuing with our celebration of Do What You Can Day, our employees from our Kapolei, Hawaii branch took part by collecting rice and canned goods for the Hawaii Foodbank’s “Nourish Ohana” food drive. They collected 278 pounds of food and donated more than $400 to the food bank!
Location: McKinney, TX
Organization: McKinney Little Free Pantry
Event: Creating care bags
Our employees from our McKinney, Texas branch bagged and donated over 500 packages filled with food, laundry detergent pods, and dryer sheets to support the McKinney Little Free Pantry. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time.
Location: Oxnard, CA
Organization: Food Share
Event: Food drive
The Oxnard team helped out this Do What You Can Day by handing out boxes of food to families in need at the Oxnard College Park. They spent a total of two hours helping at this event. As Ventura County’s regional food bank, Food Share provides food for over 75,000 hungry friends and neighbors monthly. Food Share is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief network of food banks, as well as the California Association of Food Banks.
Location: Riverside, CA
Organization: Wine To Water
Event: Water Filter kit
The Riverside branch spent their Do What You Can Day building water filtration kits for the organization, Wine To Water. This nonprofit supporting life and dignity for all through the power of clean water by way of filtration.
Location: Stockton, CA
Organization: Wine To Water
Event: Water Filter kit
Our Stockton branch worked on building water filtration kits for this event. This organization was founded by Doc Hendley, a bartender from North Carolina, who set out on a quest to bring clean water to the world. These filtration kits help provide a means in areas with no fresh drinking water.
Location: West Chicago
Organization: Wine To Water
Event: Water Filter Kit
The West Chicago Team Concrete came together to honor Barc Simpson’s memory by lending a helping hand to those in need of clean, filtered water. They spent some time learning about the clean water crisis around the world and then the team assembled water filters to be distributed to those in need.
Big round of applause to all our hardworking Simpson Strong-Tie employees who participated in this year’s Do What You Can Day efforts. The finished projects look great and it’s great to see how Barc’s principles are still influencing our company to this day.