One of the very best parts of True’s culture is our commitment to give back. It is, and always has been, one of our Core Values, and we try to live that every day. Throughout the years, our amazing Team Members have always been willing to join us in this mission by donating their time, talent, or treasure. To us, nothing feels more “True” than taking the time to support others in need.
Our commitment to give back is so strong that each year we create a unique giving theme which allows us to provide numerous ways for our Team Members to join us. This year, our theme “True Group Gives”, is centered around the idea of coming together as a team to give back. When we chose this theme at the end of last year, we had hopes of group giving events like charity 5K races, cooking dinner together for Ronald McDonald House Charities, and team trivia nights. We certainly did not envision a situation where we would all be socially distanced.
So, faced with the inability to physically come together to give back, we decided to come together virtually instead.
We started by taking a look at one of our favorite giving events – True Take Over Week. During this week, our Team Members cook a meal at each one of the 5 Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana locations. To us, this is an amazing opportunity to see their mission in action. We get to take of tour of the Houses, interact with the families staying there and hear their stories, and provide a nice home cooked meal to take one small burden off their plates.
Sadly, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, RMHC-CNI has been unable to welcome volunteers into their Houses to cook due to safety reasons. Instead, they requested individually packaged catered meals be donated to feed the families who are still caring for sick children. Now more than ever, these families need support and the True Team was more than willing to step up.
We committed to providing 5 nights of dinners to the 3 locations most in need. We let our Team know the plan, and as always, they impressed us with their willingness to join us by adding their own support and additional donations began to roll in. Over the course of the past 2 months, True was able to provide dinner for 20 different nights which has totaled 352 individual meals!
While we have missed being able to visit the RMHC-CNI Houses and interact with the amazing families they support we are so happy to have been able to help in some small way provide a little bit of “normal”. In addition to the stresses we are all facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these families have the added worry of caring for sick children during a time of extreme uncertainty. For us, being able to answer the question “What’s for dinner?” is the least we can do.
In addition to the meals we provided to the houses, True took our giving a step forward to also make monetary donations to RMHC-CNI and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central and Northern Arizona (near our Tempe office). These additional funds will be able to help with the cost of everyday operating expenses and to provide much needed supplies and cleaning products to keep the houses running smoothly.
Between the meals and additional donations, our Virtual True Take Over Week has turned out to be one of our most successful giving efforts to date, and has been an amazing and much needed reminder that although we are physically apart, we are still part of one of the very best Teams out there. We are extremely proud of our True Team Members now more than ever and are looking forward to all that lies ahead of us.
