Giving Back to the Communities Around Us

Sitting around a table with some of my co-workers in October, we were discussing the devastation in Houston, Texas from Hurricane Harvey. One of my colleagues, who is constantly visiting Houston due to large client projects, was mentioning the slow recovery and how much help is still needed in a couple of the Wards that were hit hardest by the hurricane.  We decided to do some research on how we can help and came across an organization, Target Hunger.

‍Target Hunger is one of Houston’s largest organizations providing direct food distribution to seniors, children, and families who face the risk of going hungry every day. They distribute 4.4 million pounds of food each year – the equivalent of 3.6 million meals - to more than 11,000 individuals each month.  Since it is a non-profit organization, Target Hunger relies heavily on volunteers to help distribute the food to the 11,000 individuals in and around the 5th Ward in Houston.This type of organization, the services it provides and that the Thanksgiving holiday was quickly approaching appeared to be a great fit for Reveal to provide a helping hand.  To meet this need, Reveal offered plane tickets, hotel stay and meals for anyone in the company that could take time away during the Thanksgiving week to “Give-Back” to the Houston community.  Our company, Reveal, provides every employee with 5 “Give-Back” days per year in addition to Holiday’s, Vacation and Sick Time. Giving several of us the opportunity to travel to Houston and work with Target Hunger to help pack, prepare and distribute food to those in need.

During our first day in Houston, we worked at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in Houston and our goal was to package fresh eggs, apples, turkey’s, potatoes and several other items for close to 200 families.  After assembling these food packages, we set up three stations for cars to pull up, loaded the cars with their Thanksgiving meals and wished them a happy holiday.During our second day, we volunteered at the Anderson Memorial Temple Food Pantry to help distribute food to their clients and neighbors. Our volunteers joined their volunteers and together we helped assemble and distribute food for another 200 families. We then went to the “Hub” which is where they run their daily operation, we helped to organize, clean and deliver food to many more families in need.

Although the work was more physical and tiring than we were used to, it was very humbling and gratifying to be able to provide our time and smiles to so many people that were affected by not only the Hurricane but also the elderly, single parents and others that are just trying to get by.  During this trip, we met so many wonderful people, everyone we helped feed was so gracious that we decided to try and make this a yearly “Give-Back” company outing for the employees of Reveal.