Community service strengthens team

INVESTING TIME: Fidelity Investments volunteers repaint the main hallway at Cunningham Elementary School in Pawtucket on Aug. 16, Fidelity’s Transformation Day. The company has made a decision to invest its corporate goodwill in a focused way, by improving middle school public education. / COURTESY FIDELITY
INVESTING TIME: Fidelity Investments volunteers repaint the main hallway at Cunningham Elementary School in Pawtucket on Aug. 16, Fidelity’s Transformation Day. The company has made a decision to invest its corporate goodwill in a focused way, by improving middle school public education. / COURTESY FIDELITY

Rogean Makowski, a senior vice president in wealth management, interacts with a lot of people at the Westerly-based The Washington Trust Co., but connecting with colleagues through community service has opened even more doors.
Makowski and Julia Ann Sloam, her counterpart in commercial real estate lending, both participated in the Audubon Society of Rhode Island’s annual Beach Cleanup last September, which Makowski helps coordinate. That contact developed into a closer working relationship back at the office, she said. Calls and referrals to Sloam followed.
“You get to really understand a person’s work ethic when you’re volunteering,” Makowski said. “When you’re on the beach, and it’s a beautiful day, people can walk around and enjoy the scenery, or roll up their sleeves and get things done. To me, that’s someone I really want to work with, and to work with my clients.”
Fostering volunteerism through community service is a long-standing tradition at private companies and nonprofits, but in the past few years, many of these firms are choosing community service over traditional corporate outings like company picnics and scavenger hunts, or in addition to them, as a way to enhance team building.
“We still have our annual Employee Fest, where we recognize years of service to the community and any other achievements,” said Elizabeth Eckel, Washington Trust’s senior vice president of marketing. “But not everybody goes to that. People have families, some people take courses at night and it is very difficult to get people into one place at one time. So, for us to get people hand-in–hand with community service really is great for team building.”
On the front lines, the nonprofit Serve Rhode Island connects companies with groups and school districts in need of help. Executive Director Bernie Beaudreau says the number of community-service projects his organization has facilitated totaled 91 in 2012, compared with 20 in 2010. This year, 51 projects had been completed through August, he said. In most cases, employees are allowed to clear their calendars and do the work on company time, said representatives from Washington Trust and companies as diverse as Boston-based Fidelity Investments, Providence-based RBS Citizens Financial Group, and the nonprofit Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.
“What we’ve done is really organize opportunities for people to lend their talents and skills,” Beaudreau said. “We’ve worked with organizations and schools to present opportunities for physical improvements in a lot of these places and we’ve presented it to corporations, college-level groups, fraternities and faith groups.”
The last event Washington Trust coordinated through Serve Rhode Island was getting employees to help clean up Misquamicut in Westerly after Hurricane Sandy at the end of 2012, said Eckel. Fidelity Investments likewise has made a decision to invest its corporate goodwill in a focused way, by improving middle school public education, said Beaudreau.
“They came up with an idea of transformation days in these schools,” Beaudreau said. “We have a lot of people that will work and literally transform the school physically.”
One such project involved using 75 employees to help paint classrooms, clean lights and replace chalkboards with white boards at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, said Tim Harrington, vice president of client experience at Fidelity.
“We built a classroom,” Harrington said, “and you really sensed a good feeling of helping the community. But the biggest part of it is, if they’re not in a leadership role at work, we can assign them a role as project manager at the school. We’re able to put someone in that role that at work may not have had that opportunity.”
The result, he said, is that, back in the office, employees interact differently afterward.
Shaun McEnery, a Fidelity executive office specialist, purposely took on that leadership role on June 28 during a one-day painting session of the Samuel Slater Junior High School in Pawtucket that involved 10 teams of 263 employees. Helping coordinate 40 to 60 colleagues who painted hallways and entryways on the third floor turned out just as McEnery hoped it would: Co-workers painted fervently, so he could focus on logistics. He got to know people who worked on the same floor as he does but with whom he hadn’t yet connected.
“It’s not to put on a resume,” he said. “I was really blown away by the whole process and really wanted to get involved in that.”
Not just public schools, but nonprofits such as the Genesis Center in Providence, which provides adult education for immigrants and refugees as well as child care, have benefited from the community service provided by companies that include RBS Citizens and Blue Cross, said CEO Don Keel.
“We’re on the receiving end, and it’s hugely significant for us because we’re a $2 million organization with very little wiggle room,” Keel said.
This month, an “army” of volunteers from Blue Cross is helping paint the 17,000-square-foot center, which dates back to 1924, he added.
At Blue Cross, community service wasn’t intended to replace company outings, explained Carolyn Belisle, the nonprofit’s director of corporate social responsibility and community relations. Over the years, however, as interest in the company picnic began to wane, “We really evolved from doing community outings to doing community service and volunteer type work.”
Of the 900 people employed at Blue Cross last year, 743 participated in community service, or about 77 percent, Belisle said. Of those, half completed a survey giving feedback, and of those giving that feedback, 100 percent said they enjoyed doing the volunteer work, she said.
As for Beaudreau, he is thrilled to have last year gotten 2,586 volunteers to help with projects across the state. This year, that participation is already at 1,626 through August, with four months of work left, he said.
“There’s more that could be done,” Beaudreau said. “I think a lot of businesses are finding this is a satisfactory way to do a service day.” •

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