Stuff-the-Truck: Hands-On Generosity
Though Hope Supply Co. (HSC) receives donations throughout the year, each May we experience the generosity of our community in an especially evident and hands-on way. Through our Stuff-the-Truck event, we joined numerous other diaper banks across the country to participate in the World’s Largest Diaper Drive: a national effort to collect 2 million diapers over the course of one month to help families in need.
HSC invited companies, schools, places of worship, neighborhoods and other groups to collect diapers throughout May, and many of them came together to help the families we serve in a big way. In all, Hope Supply Co. received 35,815 diapers as well as monetary donations of $1,099 during Stuff-the-Truck, equaling a total of 41,600 diapers.
Over 7,000 of those diapers came from the Stevanovic Metz Group of Baird Wealth Management. The office participated through the company’s “Baird Gives Back” program, which provides employees with paid hours to spend volunteering at an organization of their choice. Baird’s home office in Milwaukee shared they would be doing a diaper drive for another organization, and members of the Stevanovic Metz Group saw it would be a good thing to do at their office as well. When Kayla Bentle, client assistant for the group, came across Hope Supply Co. and discovered it was near the group’s office, it seemed like a great fit.
It was. And it enabled the Stevanovic Metz Group to get others in the community involved as they advertised the drive in their office building and invited clients to donate diapers. Members of the group also got a firsthand look at how Hope Supply Co. is addressing diaper need in Dallas as they personally delivered several vehicles stuffed with donations and spent time at HSC packaging what they’d collected.
Though giving cash often allows donors to stretch their dollars to have the greatest impact, events like Stuff-the-Truck provide a unique opportunity for people in the community to gain awareness of diaper need and how they can make a difference. Unlike with monetary donations, “We're actually able to see the product, see how it's prepared at their buildings.” Kayla says. She speaks of the benefit of “actually having a physical product to take over there and see how much of an impact it made.…You get to actually see where it goes.”
Barbara Johnson, CEO of Hope Supply Co., sees this benefit each time the community comes alongside HSC to participate in Stuff-the-Truck. She shares, “We invite our supporters to experience the sticker shock of diaper purchasing firsthand. This is the most effective way to demonstrate the struggles of so many young families. We feel that hands-on community involvement is the best way to build long-term support for our mission.”
That’s been the case for the Stevanovic Metz Group. Kayla and her coworkers are already thinking about next year’s drive and hoping to make participation in Stuff the Truck a yearly event, increasing their donation each year. “We talked about hopefully being able to donate 10,000 [diapers] next year,” Kayla says. “So, we've got a goal set that we'll be definitely able to work hard and reach for.”
In addition to the joy of doing good in their community, they’re also looking forward to continuing a friendly rivalry. “We actually competed with our Fort Worth office,” Kayla shares. “They found a diaper charity over there over in Fort Worth and we were kind of in a competition.” Each week the two offices would send photos from their collection efforts and current totals. Not only did the competition help to bring in more diapers, “We did end up beating them,” Kayla says. “It was really fun. We had a good time.”
Kayla tells other companies thinking about participating in Stuff-the-Truck, “Just go for it. I think sometimes groups like [Hope Supply Co.] get forgotten about. ... It’s very easy to put together to make such a big impact. It's definitely worth every penny and every minute that we took doing that program.”