Giving Back: Beacon Cares About Our Neighbors

Published April 18, 2024 | Categories: Beacon News

At Beacon, we may stand on business, but we know that we would be nothing without our community. 

That's why service is a huge part of our identity. It's a motivation for us to succeed and a reward for our efforts, and the basis of our BeaconCares program. 

Each quarter, our team focuses our service efforts on a particular theme. To kick off 2024, we chose "Serving Our Neighbors" as our Q1 theme. It's a simple idea, but a vital one, and it gets to the very heart of our BeaconCares mission. 

We tackled this theme by volunteering with two important organizations right here in Greensboro — one focused on food security and the other focused on healthcare. Read on to learn about how we worked to improve our community and make life better for the people in it.

spring cleaning

For the first of our two adventures, our team lent a hand at Meals on Wheels. Courtney, the on-site volunteer coordinator with the organization, had a feeling that we would be the perfect team for the job. And she was right! 

We gathered our team members and got to work bright and early. In fact, some of our volunteers arrived earlier that morning to pack up our custom-branded BITS-Mobile with meals. They then carefully delivered every single one of those meals to members of our community who aren’t able to leave their homes or access the food they need.

It wasn’t long before our second group was on the scene and ready to tackle the next item on the to-do list: spring cleaning! In this case, that meant gathering into Meals on Wheels' external storage facility and banding together to clean up the space, organize the inventory, and make the facility more functional for employees and future volunteers alike.

After the last can of green beans had been placed and the final bag of dog food was stacked, it was time to vacuum up after ourselves and head home. Courtney was ecstatic about the level of organization and functionality that we were able to reach. She explained: 

"This was huge for us. Everything is so organized and we can actually move around our store space now! My team is just so grateful!"

With our service to Meals on Wheels complete, we couldn't wait to serve the next neighbor on our docket. 

we can dig it

Guilford County's hospice care facility is (coincidentally) called Beacon Place, so it seemed like a perfect choice for the second leg of the "Serving Our Neighbors" campaign efforts. Arriving at Beacon Place on a beautiful March morning, our team learned we'd be working to clean up their KidsPath Garden, a special area designed for kids visiting any grandmas, grandpas or other family members receiving treatment.

We arrived ready and eager for a morning in the sunshine doing everything we could to help out. That meant distributing seven tons (yes, TONS) of gravel dust across the pathways throughout the KidsPath Garden. Fortunately, Sally, the garden coordinator, was there to make our morning brighter. Her kind and reaffirming words about how thankful she and the Beacon Place team were to have groups like ours contributing. More importantly, we made a big impact, beautifying the KidsPath Garden and making it a more special place for young visitors to the hospice facility.

always room for one more

In addition to our service expeditions, the Beacon team donated needed items like canned goods, snacks, and soaps to Senior Resources of Guilford County. And we are already looking forward to lending a hand (or a lot of hands) over these next few months throughout our second quarter. Our next theme will be "Advancing Education," and we've got plans in the works to help children throughout our community get the education opportunities and supplies they need.

We can always use more helping hands with our BeaconCares work! Check out our job opportunities and consider joining our team!