How Employers Invest in Improving of the Lansing Community

We are fortunate to live in a community full of businesses that support so many of our local charities. Making a social impact is important to all of us, but especially to the millennials in the workforce. Being involved on a local nonprofit board or a committee is also a fantastic way for young leaders to build and hone their leadership skills by spearheading a charitable effort. Here are just a few examples of how our Lansing businesses show some love:

Around the holidays, Dewpoint, the Michigan Health and Hospitals Association, and other businesses support the Greater Lansing Food Bank and Toys for Tots. AF Group employees also contribute significant volunteer time to the food bank.

Some area employers give their employees paid time off to volunteer with community charities. Each employee at Dewpoint receives $150 annually and four hours of paid time off to donate to their charity of choice. Full-time employees at Michigan State University Federal Credit Union receive eight hours of volunteer time off, and part-time employees receive five hours. According to MSUFCU, offering volunteer time off allows the credit union “to have a positive impact on the community while living out the credit union philosophy of ‘people helping people.’”

Peckham holds a holiday “blaffle” — a blessing and a raffle fundraiser that provides families in crisis with gifts and needs during the holiday season.

A few examples of what companies have done to support the community during COVID-19 include:

• To assist the Lansing Symphony Orchestra MSUFCU hosted a concert for 70 people in the backyard of its headquarters.
• Peckham distributed nearly 150,000 items of personal protective equipment — including gowns, N95 masks, sanitizer and more — to nearly 30 Michigan-based organizations serving people with disabilities during the pandemic.
• Peckham’s manufacturing division made 22,000 hospital gowns for local health care systems, and the division also sewed 6,000 face covers for every Peckham employee.
• Dewpoint, MSUFCU and other area employees shined a spotlight on various initiatives to support our local restaurants.
• During this past summer, NCG Cinemas offered a Friday popcorn special where if you bought a $20 NCG gift card, you also received a bucket of popcorn as well as a movie pass, and NCG donated another movie ticket to caregivers and first responders.

There are too many initiatives to list where businesses have done and are doing to their part to support the Greater Lansing community and its residents, but the efforts employers make toward the betterment of our region reflect the level of personal involvement the business community invests in raising the area to new heights.