For as long as I can remember, our St. Cloud office has held an annual fundraising campaign for the United Way of Central Minnesota.
This organization is near and dear to my heart for many reasons, most importantly of which is their commitment to children and families in our community. As a father to five kids, and CEO of a family-owned company, this resonates deeply with me.
In September, we held our annual week-long United Way Giving Campaign. This year, several departments of Leighton Enterprises worked together to coordinate daily events for the week.
Each event required a five dollar donation to participate. The supplies for each event were either donated by local companies or our employees.
Craft Beer Tasting
The crew at Leighton Interactive, our inbound marketing agency division, held a craft beer sampling happy hour. If you’re not familiar with Leighton Interactive, they have beer on tap upstairs for Friday afternoon Beerstorming sessions. Naturally, a craft beer sampling was right up their alley.
Each participant paid their entry, and was allowed to choose any number of craft beers and hard ciders to sample. Don’t worry, we practice responsibility. There was a strict limit on the number of samples each person could try.
Caramel Apple Bar
The next day, one of our St. Cloud account executives, Chris LeDuc, spearheaded organizing a caramel apple bar. This wasn’t your typical fare, with a whole apple and caramel topping. It was more like a decadent meal in a bowl: sliced apples, caramel topping, chocolate topping, peanuts, crushed candy bars and more. Plus, it was all you can eat!
Again, for just five dollars, participants could gorge themselves on caramel apples and the fixings til their hearts’ were content.
Pumpkin Ordering
Another St. Cloud account executive, Cole Erie, utilized his contact at Stoney Brook Farms, in Foley, to allow our employees to order pumpkins for Halloween and fall decorating. Once the orders were placed, Stoney Brook delivered them the next week.
Pizza Lunch
It’s not a complete event without some sort of meal, right? This is Minnesota we live in. So, to close the week's festivities, our Human Resources Generalist, Brian ZenZen, got in touch with Jet’s Pizza, located in downtown St. Cloud, to deliver pizzas to the staff for lunch.
Needless to say, nobody went hungry that day...or the next day, with all the leftovers we had.
The Impact for United Way
As you can see, we have a lot of fun and get to express our creativity, every year, when coming up with daily events to support a great cause. United Way week is something I look forward to each year, and our employees do too.
This year, I am pleased to say, we blew past our goal for money raised and donated to the United Way. I believe making the events fun, and something to look forward to, helped us exceed our goal.
At Leighton Media, we believe in serving, connecting and celebrating our community. United Way week is just one of the many ways our team pulls together to do just that.