As we head into the holiday season, it’s time to spread the joy and give back to our local communities. This year our Wellesley office decided to partner with the Friends of Boston’s Homeless — a non-profit organization which supports men’s and women’s homeless shelters in the area. The team came together to purchase materials and make 75 scarves for their annual winter clothing drive. On the West Coast, our Pleasanton office partnered with the Family Giving Tree for their annual holiday wish drive — fulfilling the exact holiday gift wishes of low-income children, families and seniors in the Bay Area.
Two Blumers — Sherie Costa from Wellesley and Lindsay White from Pleasanton — drove these initiatives, choosing the organizations and encouraging team members to participate. We asked them a couple of questions about their experience.
Why did you decide to partner with these organizations?
Sherie: The Friends of Boston’s Homeless is an organization just a few miles away from the office that serves over 800 people experiencing homelessness every day. They give out thousands of essential items (like scarfs, socks and gloves) every year, and we wanted to help them in this effort. As the temperatures started to drop in the Boston area, we all became more aware of the challenges that the homeless in our area were facing. The temperatures can get well below freezing in our area, basic essentials like scarves can make a huge difference to these individuals who don’t have much. Not only did we want to donate to this effort, we wanted to make these scarves by hand so that the recipients knew that there were people out there that cared and that they were not forgotten.
Lindsay: I had partnered with Family Giving Tree in the past and not only do I love the concept, but I really appreciate how organized they are. They have provided over 1 million gifts to San Francisco Bay Area children, families and seniors from low-income households. In addition to the food and toy drive we were already participating in, we wanted to find a way to give back to the community in a more personal way that would fulfill specific wishes this holiday season.
What was the overall experience like for you?
Sherie: Our team is always looking for ways to give back to our community, we all take turns finding new and unique ways to contribute. This particular cause was especially fun, we were able to set aside the craziness of work and just focus on being together, laughing, having fun and really making a difference. We discovered that some of the team have very useful scarf making skills. It was so rewarding to see people all take time out of their busy days to spend time helping those who need a little bit of a lift up!
Lindsay: This is my favorite time of year and it warms my heart knowing that we can contribute to making Christmas special. As a mother, I understand how much it means to watch your family open presents they truly wished for with such joy. Everyone was so willing to participate and buy gifts for the kids and seniors in need that we even had to request more wish tags! I hope to continue this tradition at Blume for years to come.
We’re thankful to have been able to give back this holiday season! To learn more about the people behind Blume Global, read our Blume Year in Review here.
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