What Are You Doing For Others? TVG Day of Service
By Andy Likes, TVG Senior Vice President
For more than 20 years, TVG has been giving back to clients in St. Louis and across the country. When you look at dollars and hours donated over that time, our firm and our employees have given more than $3 Million back to the communities we serve.
For the past 11 years, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of chairing TVG’s United Way campaign. Over the years, we’ve come up with some creative ways to get employees to donate what they can—a cook out, bake sale, even a mini-golf tournament with holes set up around the TVG office. For the last two years, we’ve done things a little differently. Upon reaching 100% participation in our United Way Drive, we gave every employee a paid day off to go volunteer in the community. For the second straight year, we chose to do that on MLK Day. To quote Dr. King, “What are you doing for others?”
This year, I arranged to work with one of TVG’s clients, St. Patrick Center, a St. Louis-based organization helping to end homelessness. I spent MLK Day serving a spaghetti casserole, a chicken and rice casserole, and a dessert to those at St. Patrick Center’s Biddle Housing Opportunities Center, a place that helps rapidly re-house people who need a place to live. We may take for granted going home every night and eating a nice meal. Being able to help people who didn’t have that luxury was eye-opening. The people eating lunch were genuinely appreciative of the hot meal and our work, and paid us not with cash or a voucher, but with a smile, a head nod and a thank you. Those expressions warmed every volunteer in the room and fueled us for hours.
I’m proud to serve on the Board of Trustees of St. Patrick Center, and now I’m happy to say I’ve helped serve those in need at the facility, and will do it again. Giving back and seeing true appreciation makes everything better. It’s incredible to see Dr. King’s vision for giving back, alive and well in 2017. Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear first-hand accounts from some of my colleagues about how they gave back to the community on MLK Day. Thanks for reading and thank you for being a part of the TVG community. We are proud to give back.
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