A Week of Service at McKonly & Asbury

By Scott A. Heintzelman

If you’re a busy person, you know the temptation to say “no” when someone asks you to get involved as a volunteer.  But if you volunteer, you also know the tremendous pay back of giving of yourself to great causes.   Recently I joined the board of The Second Mile.  Their mission is to challenge young people to achieve their potential as individuals and community members.  It’s a mentoring organization that provides opportunities for kids to develop positive life skills and self-esteem, as well as providing education and support for parents and professionals addressing the needs of youth.  Many people know this organization because the founder (Jerry Sandusky) was the long time defensive coordinator for the Penn State Football team.  Our firm encourages us to get involved in our community, because we know that breeding a culture of service that truly resonates with our team has to be about more than just customer service.   My fellow partners and colleagues are deeply involved in the community.  In fact in the press release about me joining the Second Mile Board, you can see another partner of my firm also recently joined a community board.

Our dedication to community service is never more apparent than the first week in September, when we annually participate in United Way’s Day of Caring.  Local United Way Chapters use this as a kick-off for their annual campaign – setting aside a day for thousands of volunteers to swarm across the community and put some sweat equity into the agencies that United Way supports.  We had approximately 50% of employees involved in spending time working on service projects for some local community organizations.  For a company who’s capacity to generate revenue is all about time availability from our team members, this represents a huge commitment from our firm’s leadership.  We invest that opportunity cost in our community because we know we’ll reap the return on helping us build and reinforce our culture of service to others.  I continue to be very proud of McKonly & Asbury and know our employees feel more engaged when they can be part of an organization that gives meaning to their work.

What service activities are you and your organization involved with?  Do employees seem more engaged and inspired because of this involvement?