Onboarding a new company is always exciting! Especially companies that have never volunteered together. We get to introduce them to how much fun you can have while making a difference. We get to change their perspective of what fulfilling and engaging team building can look like. And we get to see teams come alive and connect in new ways which was just the case with Go Flooring. With their team spread across multiple offices and often working on job sites seeing them connect at a Purpose Day while helping a local nonprofit was so rewarding.

The Need

One in nine households in Canada experience food insecurity and one in six children under the age of 18 live in households experiencing some level of food insecurity. Thanks to in school food programs many children will have breakfast or lunch provided but what happens when they go home for the weekend? Backpack Buddies in North Vancouver has engineered a helpful solution for thousands of students across British Columbia.

Backpack Buddies is a program that coordinates with schools all over BC to provide bags of food to children for the weekend. Each bag is carefully packed and distributed with upmost care to ensure the children are receiving healthy options. Backpack Buddies works with social workers, school administrators, and teachers to discreetly distribute food to children who may need it. They use donations to purchase food and volunteers to pack the bags that go out each week. They send bags of food to the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, the interior, and up to northern BC.

The Impact

Our team arrived to help pack the bags that are sent out and they worked hard for the three hours we were there. We were able to pack 861 bags with our team of 13 people. These bags were sent out to students in Vancouver, Richmond, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Squamish, and Nelson. Each bag was packed with a juice box, two apples, oatmeal, cereal, rice, fruit snacks, and more. These bags after being packed are received within a week by children all across BC. We were also able to box up 550 already packed bags that shipped the next day to Port Hardy and Courtney.

The Company

We were lucky to host this event for Go Flooring, they provide flooring services and installation across the Fraser Valley. It was Go Flooring’s first time at a Purpose Day with us and they were so fantastic to work with. Their team brought a great energy and we ended up racing to see who could pack the bags the fastest. Small competitions like this bring out so much fun and can really break down barriers to help people connect and be more comfortable with each other. Their team is from multiple different locations and offices and this event gave them a space to come together and get to know people they might not interact with on a daily basis.