How We Helped Make-A-Wish During a Pandemic
With the global COVID-19 Pandemic, many changes to our daily lives have come all at once. Our normal tradition is to pay for all the families of Make-A-Wish Vermont to attend a Vermont Lake Monsters baseball game, but with the suspension of the 2020 season, we had to get creative. If we can’t bring them to the game, why not bring the game to them?
Being Creative During a Pandemic
It was this idea that sparked the Instrumart team into action. Our employees began putting together gift boxes to invite the Make-A-Wish kids to next year’s baseball game. Those that were working in the office utilized the extra space due to our work-from-home policy to organize and start getting to work.
As always, the generous community around us went to bat for the Make-A-Wish kids, donating a wide range of goodies to make the boxes extra special. The Vermont Lake Monsters provided team apparel and toys, and our Instrumart employees helped shop for items with cash generously donated by the community.
The boxes also included bubbles, sidewalk chalk, s’mores kits, t-shirts, Amazon gift cards, and Starbucks gift cards for the older kids. All in all, 70 boxes were put together and delivered. They were packed to accommodate 170 kids, and if the Make-A-Wish kid had siblings, gifts were included for them as well.
It's a Community-Wide Effort
Overall, our team had so much fun putting together these gift boxes. We are always impressed by our employees’ willingness to contribute their time and resources. We also want to thank those who donated their resources to make this project a great success:
- Vermont Lake Monsters
- Community Bank, N.A.
- Amalgamated Culture Works
- Ben & Jerry’s
- Burton Snowboards
- ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain
- Trans-Border Global Freight Systems, Inc.
- Gravel & Shea
- Kevin Farrell
You can see more from this project on our local CBS Affiliate’s website.
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