We rise by lifting others
Employees in our St. Joseph and St. Louis offices are working to better their communities. Find out more about what they did.
April was National Volunteer Month and folks in St. Joseph and St. Louis – and many other areas – celebrated accordingly.
The St. Louis injury branch did something extra special this year, branching out into the community to volunteer.
“We’d done a lot of charity work inside our office before this year, but this year we wanted to physically get out into our community,” says Casualty Claims Manager Jenny Fevurly.
Each team picked a charity it was passionate about to volunteer for, with a goal of having 100 percent of the teams volunteer. (They are well on their way to achieving that goal.)
Let’s see where St. Louis injury branch teams volunteered:
• St. Louis Food Bank: The team packaged 384 boxes of food for senior citizens. 
• Sweet Celebrations: This organization throws birthday parties for homeless children, the AmFam team got crafty and put together several themes for future parties.
• Friends of Kids with Cancer: The team picked up and delivered iPads, snacks, DVDs, gift cards and other items to kids suffering from cancer.
• Operation Food Search: The team worked in the warehouse packaging backpacks for kids to take home on weekends, ensuring they have food to eat when they’re not at school.
“We invest so much in ourselves – meeting deadlines, achieving results, winning awards, all of which definitely matters,” says Jenny. “However, volunteering is a great reminder that real investments are in people. Not only was it a great team-building exercise, we also were able to change some lives and help restore dreams.”
Rolling strikes for a day full of smiles
Meanwhile, the Sales and Service Care Center Team 11 from the St. Joseph office volunteered at a Special Olympics bowling event that featured 1,300 bowlers.
The team spent the whole day helping kids find the correct bowling balls, stay in the correct lanes and record their scores – and they enjoyed every minute of it. But, most importantly, they were there to cheer the kids on.
“Their smiles were so infectious,” says Customer Service Rep Emily Reid. “They were so proud of themselves, it was tremendously rewarding to be a part of the day.”
“It was very uplifting to see these young men and women do what they loved, share camaraderie and enjoy competition” says Customer Service Rep Cheryl Grace. “Seeing the looks on their faces when the ribbons were given out was well worth the time spent there.”