Last year, when I volunteered to be our health and wellness cheerleader, I had somewhat selfish intentions. You see, over the past year, I had lost 35 pounds and actually managed to keep it off for long enough that it seemed like it might last this time. My whole adult life, my weight has fluctuated wildly, and while shopping for new clothes is actually pretty fun for me it’s both exhausting and expensive!

I recently told you about an inspiring volunteer experience our creative team had at Kids’ Food Basket here in Grand Rapids. Buzz went around the office after we returned, and more teams were asking me how they could get involved, too.

A few weeks passed, and our day out in the wild was about to become a distant memory when we, a recognition company, ended up receiving a little recognition ourselves. Yes, to our surprise, a poster showed up at our front door decorated with thank you letters and photos from the kids who benefited. We proudly displayed our poster in a common area, and, as a result, our little mission (and KFB, more importantly) got even more exposure. Hooray!

At Baudville, we’re fortunate enough to be hiring right now, which means we have all kinds of new faces walking our hallways. Whenever we have new employees on board, we always take a few minutes at our all-staff meetings to introduce them to everyone. There’s a fair amount of hoopla at these meetings, and I think a lot of our newbies leave them with their hair blown back a little. (I still remember my first one!) But, we only have these meetings periodically, so sometimes new team members can be here for weeks or even a few months before they get that big shebang welcome.

This got me wondering… about our new hires’ impressions of us and also about what we, as a company or as individuals, do to make people feel welcome here on a day-to-day basis. So, I asked them!

Love at the office? Under normal circumstances, this is probably not recommended. But the kind of love I’m talking about is mutual respect, admiration, and appreciation for the people we work with—and I’ve sure seen a lot of it around the ‘ville lately!

Like when I walk past our lunchroom and see the tables filled with people from all departments breaking bread together. Or pause at the Shout Out Wall to read all the sincere accolades Baudvillians are giving their peers. Or when I see people get truly enthusiastic when they give thanks and compliments to their co-workers.

It doesn’t seem possible (time flies when you’re having fun!); but just about exactly a year ago I wrote about an outing that the creative group and I took to a letter press studio. You can read about that here, if you’re interested.

I was thrilled with the experience and the value it brought to us as a team and as individuals. And, ever since, I’ve been scheming new ideas for our next big adventure, preferably an activity of equal or greater value. That calling came one day when a little bird landed on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. OK, actually it was our VP of Product and Merchandising.

And she wasn’t whispering, she was raving—about a charity event she’d attended the night before that benefited a local organization called Kids Food Basket, which does a pretty amazing job of fighting childhood hunger in our city. What she was so impressed with is that this operation somehow manages to supply free, nutritious “sack suppers” to more that 4,600 kids in need every weekday. Wow, right?