On November 14th, thirteen FlipKey members strapped on their hairnets and volunteered their time to prepare meals at the Community Servings facility in Jamaica Plain. As part of “FlipKey Gives Back” month, an annual program created by the company this year, FlipKey plans to help its greater community by volunteering and donating to some select Boston-based organizations.
In deciding which non-profits to contribute to, Community Servings was an easy choice for the FlipKey team. Each week, the Community Servings kitchen prepares and delivers 7,500 meals to the critically-ill and homebound in Massachusetts. The individuals benefiting from this program all lay in a critical stage of a life threatening illness and are unable to shop or cook for themselves. 95% of these individuals are also living at or below the poverty level, making proper nutrition that much harder to maintain. By providing something as simple and necessary as a ready-to-eat meal, Community Servings helps to make life a little bit healthier and easier for these individuals.
In addition to getting hands-on in the Community Servings kitchen, FlipKey supports this particular non-profit by taking part in its annual Thanksgiving fundraiser called “Pie in the Sky”. Acting as pie sellers, FlipKey team members reach out to friends, family members, and colleagues to sell pies at $25 each with all proceeds going towards the various efforts of the Community Servings organization. The pies themselves are baked fresh and donated to the fundraiser by local restaurants, bakeries, and various other culinarily-inclined individuals of Greater Boston.
For their next hands-on volunteer day, members of the FlipKey team will visit More than Words, a non-profit, used bookstore that was established to help the displaced youths of Boston. This organization offers job experience and ultimately independence to teenage individuals who are in foster care, court involved, homeless, or not enrolled in school. With the help of volunteers, the organization also provides resume and cover letter workshops for these youths in order to support their paths towards a stable adulthood. FlipKey volunteers will help the organization’s efforts by working side-by-side with youths in the store while mentoring them on how to prepare for the job force.
Looking towards the Christmas holiday, FlipKey will soon also support the Salvation Army by participating in the Adopt-a-Family program. The Adopt-a-Family program involves donating a wish-list of items to a sponsored, suffering family that has gone through some sort of recent trauma such as critical illness, fire in the home causing displacement, etc. In addition to toys and fun items that the family requests, the sponsors are always asked to include new clothing and a gift card to a local grocery store in the donation.
Thus far, these volunteering opportunities have been well received with employees as a fun way to work together and get to know fellow employees. In the future, the hope is that the experiences gained during “FlipKey Gives Back” will inspire employees to consider volunteering on a more consistent basis.
