What Being Awesome With People Means To Me— Community Outreach

At FullContact, we work hard to make sure we are embodying our core values both inside and outside of the office. In this blog by Product Manager, Jess Nolan, she explains how she turns those words into actions.

In my three years at FullContact, one of my favorite things about working here is still the openness to ideas from anyone at the organization. One of our core values is We Are Awesome with People and our CEO, Bart Lorang, wrote a great blog post about Being Awesome with Yourself. I’ve been passionate about giving back to the local community by volunteering my time. In fact, it gives me energy and reminds me how important it is to be awesome with people. Admittedly, over the past few years, it’s been harder to make time for this.

In my experience, volunteering with coworkers not only feels good but it also strengthen relationships with coworkers I don’t normally work with. I believe stronger relationships make a more productive and happier place to work. I pitched the idea of planning an office wide community engagement event once per quarter to our Exec team. Without hesitation, I received their support and approval. Bart encouraged me to Ship, Improve, Repeat (another of our core values) and not wait for permission.  

So full steam ahead to October 2017, where 10 of us performed trail maintenance to Mesa Top Trail at North Table Mountain Park in Golden. Scott Waters, our site leader, provided great instruction on how to reduce trail erosion before winter. It was a lot of manual, hard work –  digging holes, moving dirt and carrying rocks to build a handful of new drains. The highlight for many of us was the visit from two rattlesnakes at the end of the day.

Personally, my favorite part was enjoying beers with coworkers at New Terrain Brewery after a long day of hard work knowing that I did my small part to improve the experience for those using the trails. We are looking forward to a return visit in the spring to see how our work held up.

Earlier this year, three of us volunteered at an awesome organization called Clothes to Kids Denver. The mission of Clothes to Kids is to provide free school clothing to preschool-12th grade students from low-income or in-crisis families in a welcoming store-like setting. This year marks their 10th anniversary and they recently provided the millionth wardrobe to a child in need.

Our morning was spent doing a variety of tasks including organizing the clothing racks by size and sorting the items by color to make it easier for patrons to find what they were looking for. Additionally, we sorted and tagged new donations to restock the store. It was great to see first hand the excitement and gratitude as shoppers found new wardrobes for their children. Interested in volunteering with Clothes to Kids? Learn more here.

I am grateful to work at a place like FullContact that empowers me to give back. I’m looking forward to continuing to volunteer my time along with my coworkers and local community members.

Does your company encourage employees to volunteer? If it does, where do you volunteer?