Aug. 6, 2007
Friendship Trays News
Sprint employees compete for top
donation honors
Area
Sprint employees last week supported Friendship Trays with a
donation of more than five tons of food. The Sprint
Foundation planned to match Sprint employees'
generosity with a check for $1,100.
Pallets of donations totaling 11,212 pounds arrived on the Friendship Trays loading dock Friday. Bags of flour. Cornmeal. Sugar. Canned vegetables. Applesauce. A veritable cornucopia of food to fuel Friendship Trays' kitchen.
It's the sixth year that Sprint's local employees have designated Friendship Trays as recipient of their Feed the Need food drive. Sprint donates to Friendship Trays because the meals-on-wheels program for Charlotte-Mecklenburg "has a unique way of taking care of people," said Stefanie Ziolkowski, internal communication planner at Sprint's Customer Care Center in southwest Charlotte.
Kansas City-based Sprint sponsors food drives at its U.S. facilities each July. Last year, the Charlotte center in Whitehall Technology Park had a goal of 10,500 pounds, and brought in 11,700 pounds. Ziolkowski said this year's drive involved about 600 employees.
Competition for bragging rights in the food drive was stiff. Ten-employee teams worked to post the biggest numbers. And the Charlotte call center was also competing against another center in Panama City, Fla., which is also managed by Director Alex Elmes. Ziolkowki reported that Charlotte donated 17 pounds of food per employee, besting Panama City's 12 pounds per employee.
While some Sprint employees may have sought donations from area grocers, most of the food was purchased at retail by Sprint employees, Ziolkowski said.
Friendship Trays Executive Director Lucy Bush Carter said any donated food that cannot be worked into Friendship Trays menus will be turned over to Loaves & Fishes, whose Charlotte food pantries serve individuals in need.
Sprint began operations in Charlotte in 1999. Sprint completed its merger
with Nextel in 2005. In the six years of its food drive donations to
Friendship Trays, the Charlotte office has donated about $6,000 in corporate
funds and about 69,000 pounds of food donated by employees, Ziolkowski said.
Above, from left: Sprint Facilities Technician Kevin Wideman trucks the goods; Sprint center Director Alex Elmes highlights a donation; Friendship Trays' Otis Hemphill carries a bag of rice toward the Friendship Trays truck. (Pictures above courtesy of Sprint).
