Toyota Material Handling associates along with some of their family members signed up to volunteer their time Friday for Toyota Lift the Community Day in Jackson and Bartholomew counties.
Justin Albers, corporate communications and public relations specialist for the company, said this is the second year for the event.
“We hosted our inaugural event last July as a way to involve all of our associates, including those that work in the factory,” Albers said. “It became the largest organized single-day volunteer effort in the county.”
He said they were supporting two separate events for Anchor House Family Assistance Center and Pantry in Seymour — one at the food pantry unpacking, sorting and stocking the shelves and the other being at the golf outing fundraiser at Shadowood Golf Course in Seymour. The latter, unfortunately, was impacted by the weather.
Reins to Recovery Inc. Therapeutic Riding Center north of Reddington and the Boys and Girls Club of Seymour were two other organizations on the volunteer list. Girls Inc. of Jackson County playground cleanup and revitalization was a third event, though it also was impacted by the weather.
“Associates that were signed up for those postponed events were rerouted to support other volunteer activities with priority given to the shop associates who may not be able to participate in the rescheduled opportunities outside of the factory shutdown week,” Albers said.
After all available opportunities were fully staffed Friday, the remaining Toyota volunteers returned to the campus in Walesboro to volunteer in other ways, including packing backpacks for children in need, writing letters of comfort to those in hospice and more.
Around 14 organizations in and around Columbus received help from the volunteers, including Orphan Grain Train in Jonesville, Just Friends, Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center, Mill Race Center, Crump Theatre restoration and Bartholomew County Humane Society, just to name a few.
Albers said Toyota is committed to the community and still plans to complete any of the volunteer opportunities that were rained out.
Albers said one of the kaizen, the Japanese word for improvement, opportunities they saw from last year’s inaugural event was that they needed to provide associates with as much notice as possible for the date of this event so those who may have prescheduled vacations could participate.
“As a result, our participation increase by approximately 100% year over year with just over 200 associates participating in the event last year and 298 associates as well as 35 family members of associates participating this year,” he said.
Tracy Stachniak, vice president of human resources at Toyota, said the company’s purpose is to organize a day where they could bring their employees together and do a mass separate effort out in the community.
“We break our associates into groups and then deploy everyone over Seymour, Columbus and surrounding areas,” she said. “It’s our day out and about volunteering at different organizations, and I’m technically not volunteering here. I’m helping the videographers get some footage and sharing with some of the associates what it means to volunteer.”
She said it’s a fun day to spend time together as a team and serve the communities.
Around 10 Toyota associates, including family members, were at the Anchor House pantry to help unload food from the pallets and place them onto the shelves.
Kayla Farland and her husband, Justin Farland, helped unload bags of flour from a pallet at the pantry. Kayla said she doesn’t work for Toyota but wanted to be there because she enjoys volunteering and serving the community.
Toyota associate Heather Jackson was equipped with a clipboard and pen checking off items as they were unloaded. She was there to get in some volunteer hours and to help the community, she said.
Pantry Director Becki McNeeley explained to the volunteers what services the pantry offers and how the system works.
“Anybody can donate, and it doesn’t have to be just food,” McNeeley said. “We also have the apartments, and so we supply all of their cleaning supplies and items like shampoo, soap, toothpaste and personal items like that.”
She was overwhelmed by all of the donations the pantry received last winter around Christmas, especially when boxes of cereal were collected at a school.
“The boxes were all lined up in a row to create a domino effect when the first was tipped over,” McNeeley said. “So after those were all knocked over, we were given about 2,000 boxes of cereal.”
She said they are just now beginning to run out of the cereal and will need to get some more, but she said it’s amazing how generous people have been. Just recently, Anchor House was gifted some brand-new Pampered Chef appliances by representative Karen Abbott and her crew.
“As for the volunteers here today from the factory, Toyota has done a fantastic job,” McNeeley said. “We really appreciate all of their help.”
Emily McDonald, volunteer coordinator at Anchor House, said for anyone interested in helping out, they have an application process and a background check.
“As for volunteer duties, if it’s on a pantry day, they could be stocking or bagging, cleaning in the pantry or cleaning the apartments, and we also have translators that come in sometimes,” she said. “We appreciate them all.”