Celebration of Caring brings smiles
Businesses partner with United Way to volunteer at area nonprofits
The United Way of Union County held their annual Celebration of Caring on Thursday, partnering with local businesses to send volunteers to several local nonprofit organizations to perform service projects.
Eight local businesses created teams to send to the different organizations. United Way Executive Director Alexis Alexander said the celebration, which the United Way has held for almost 20 years, went well this year.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for us to get those (business) people out, in person, at those (nonprofit) agencies so they can see firsthand what United Way and our partner agencies use those donations for,” Alexander said. She said the various teams included children as young as toddlers to elderly adults in their 90s.
At Hope Landing, LANXESS and Southern Bancorp teamed up to help weed flower beds, hang a new door and prepare a room to be painted.
“We just decided, Hope Landing, they give so much to the community. We just wanted to give something back,” said Amelia Phillips, LANXESS public relations land coordinator. “And we’re very, very thankful to have so many people willing to volunteer to help the community.”
LANXESS sent two volunteer teams into the community Thursday, to Hope Landing and Champagnolle Landing Senior Center.
“LANXESS sees a great value in serving our community and we want to be a part of anything and everything we can to help the community,” said Mark Day, LANXESS public relations manager.
Jenny Williams, director of marketing and relations at Hope Landing, said having the volunteer group has been great for the facility.
“It’s been a tremendous help. The Celebration of Caring in conjunction with the United Way is something we look forward to every year,” Williams said.
The full service therapy clinic has gardens, in- and out-patient water and horse therapy and more, which it uses to help developmentally delayed children in El Dorado and Union County.
“We like having the community come out and see the ranch. … (We love) the thought of people coming
and helping out here,” Williams said.
Workers with LANXESS and First Financial Bank went to Champagnolle Landing Senior Center where they played bingo and served lunch to the visiting patrons.
H. Juergen Lugowski, LANXESS head of quality management, was one of the representatives from LANXESS who came to the Senior Center.
“It’s more rewarding than sitting at home,” Lugowski said. “It’s satisfying to do something to give something back.”
As part of leading bingo, the companies came together with prizes for the winner of each round. Prizes included bottles of soda, Oreos, body lotion, candles and the final prize of a tin of popcorn.
Jade Beer, with First Financial Bank, said she wasn’t involved with United Way before this, but that she’ll probably continue to participate in future years.
“I had never really done anything like this before so it was such an eye-opener for me,” Beer said. “The amount that they give back to the community … is just really, really awesome to me.”
Lugowski said volunteering is something good for people to do and he doesn’t think anybody would turn down somebody looking to give back to the community.
“That interaction is important,” Lugowski said. “I think all of us help and you need to do something. Because our society goes too much ‘me, me, me’ instead of (others). You have to help people out. The less you talk about it, the better it is. Sometimes you just do it.”
“And one of the great things, too, about the Celebration of Caring: it not only gets volunteers out to these agencies so they can see these things firsthand, but then they also start to build relationships with those agencies,” Alexander said.
She added that several of Thursday’s volunteers told her that they planned to visit the nonprofit agencies again in the future to volunteer.
The local businesses and nonprofit organizations that participated in the event were:
•Chemours volunteered at Camp De Soto.
• Southern Bancorp and LANXESS volunteered at Hope Landing.
•First Financial Bank and LANXESS volunteered at Champagnolle Landing.
•Bancorp South volunteered at the Salvation Army.
• Nexans Amer Cable volunteered at Camp Wotapi.
•Murphy Oil Corp. volunteered at ECCEL — Old Union.