How much hope can you stuff into a backpack to help disadvantaged children succeed in school? Team members across Tampa Electric can give you an idea.
Lori O’Keefe, supervisor with Credit & Collections, suggested her department take part in Backpacks of Hope, an initiative of Metropolitan Ministries. The program enables volunteers to donate school supplies to students whose families struggle to afford supplies of their own.
Julia McMichen, revenue protection coordinator with Credit & Collections, went a step further and added a contest element to entice her department to greater participation – and as an example to motivate other departments to gather school supplies. Specifically, she asked her team members to decorate pencil boxes by stacking up as many school supplies as possible in or on the boxes.
And boy, did it work.
Participation in Backpacks of Hope came from team members in Billing & Payments, Credit & Collections, Tampa Electric and Peoples Gas Customer Care, Customer Engineering, Customer Service Business Systems, Emergency Management, New Construction, Recruitment & Staffing and Telecom.
“Helping students gets to the very heart of what TECO’s community focus is all about,” said Linda Teresi, investigator associate with Credit & Collections and one of several team members who helped coordinate Backpacks of Hope for TECO. “Team members donated hundreds of pencils, crayons, markers, paper products and other supplies as well as over 25 filled backpacks that we delivered to Metropolitan Ministries.
“The education these students are getting now will help lay the foundation for what they learn going forward, so it’s so important to give them the tools they need to succeed,” Teresi added. “Team members really responded to that idea, and the results were amazing.”
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