Phil's Fancy Toy Party

I'm used to seeing all my running friends in grubbies and sweaty and gross. That's the normal.

Lucky for us, Phil threw a toy-gathering party, and formal attire was strongly encouraged.

Check out how good we look!

With Phil, the evening's excellent host

  

 

Oh yeah, we clean up well. Plus, the kids got a bunch of toys for Christmas. Thanks, Phil!

Meeting BoMF (Back on My Feet) Founder, Anne Mahlum

Marriott is a pretty big company, so sometimes celebrities and other community figures stop by headquarters, deliver a speech, and/or shake hands for a little bit.

Yesterday, our visitor was NFL football player Brian Orakpo.

The Washington Redskins' linebacker came in for a kick-off event for a partnership between the NFL and Marriott's Courtyard brand. He was well-spoken when answering questions, and I can confirm that he is just as large of a man in person as he looks on TV.

These pictures don't do the man justice. He's very, very big.

However, today we had another guest that I was probably more impressed to meet.

Back on My Feet (BoMF) Founder and CEO, Anne Mahlum.

Anne leading some BoMF participants

If you've never heard of BoMF, you should check out their website and learn more. In short, Anne's nonprofit organization "promotes the self-sufficiency of those experiencing homelessness by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength, and self-esteem." How cool is that?!?

I first learned of Anne and her organization in Runner's World magazine in January 2009 [you can read the article here]. Her initiative, determination, and unique approach to helping the homeless struck me.

Anyway, Anne was here today, and it was awesome meeting her. She and her associate (the CFO, I believe) were friendly and we all chatted about racing and marathons and fund-raising for a few minutes. I came away even more impressed with her and the BoMF program, and wanting to help.

So I signed up to give a donation, and they were very grateful even though I'm sure they regularly receive much larger donations. If you'd like to contribute to BoMF, you can do so at this web page.

Can't wait to see who the next awesome person to come to headquarters will be!

Help Me Pick a Charity

My bank (Wachovia) is merging into Wells Fargo. As part of that merger, they're going to donate money to several charities, based on the votes of current bank members.

All of the options are excellent, and while all will receive funds from Wells Fargo, I just can't decide which to choose.

In order to determine my vote, I'd like your help.

Here are the options, with links and their impact focus:

A) Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington - juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy and STDs, childhood obesity, and lack of arts programming.

B) Capital Area Food Bank - hunger and nutrition.

C) Community Foundation of the National Capital Region's Neighbors in Need Fund - food, clothing, and shelter.

D) Goodwill of Greater Washington - job training services to people with disadvantage and disabilities.

E) March of Dimes (Maryland-National Capital Area Chapter) - preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

As you can see, these are all important causes, so I appreciate your vote and, if you'd like to, a brief snippet of why you chose the charity you did.

And of course, if you have funds you'd also like to give directly, I fully encourage your doing so to any of the charities above.

Thanks so much for your help and input!

Spirit to Serve

Doing service feels good. We all know that.

Service is one reason I'm grateful that each year of my professional career,

I've had a day set aside by my employer for service in the community.

With Deloitte, as part of "Impact Day", I got to clean up a school yard in southwest DC (2008) and work on the sloth bears exhibit at the National Zoo (2009). On my first Marriott "Spirit to Serve" day (2010), our team went to a neighborhood park

[read about it here and see pic of Ryan and me below].

This year, we were scheduled to do painting and pruning at a therapeutic riding horse farm. Due to rain, not as many went up for that, and I ended up back at Marriott HQ.

The time was put to good use, though, doing various craft projects for the sick kids at The Children's Inn at NIH. We tried to be creative and make them fun, and these are some examples of the journals that I came up with:

I tried to make some guy ones, since most of the volunteers on this project were ladies and chose to make girly ones with lots of pink and purple and hearts and that sort of stuff. Little boys need to have something to remind them of sports and playing, too, right?

Thanks to companies like Deloitte, Marriott, and others that recognize they are part of the community and can do so much to benefit less-fortunate people around them.

And these days are a great reminder that we can also do service with our church groups or friends or even on our own anytime we'd like!

Marriott Spirit to Serve Day

One day of Marriott Associate Appreciation Week is reserved for serving the community. This isn't new to me, as Deloitte & Touche had a similar service day called Impact Day, but it always makes you feel good to know that your company is at least making some visible effort to improve the communities in which it operates. And this wasn't just Marriott headquarters doing service, it was all of the hotels and offices around the world, which makes for a substantial sacrifice of working hours by the Marriott company.The CSA department was split up, and my group was assigned to work on North Gate Park in Aspen Hill, Maryland. We had a variety of tasks to work on, including:

sweeping the walking paths/trails,

painting railings, picnic tables, benches, and the park sign,

clearing garbage from the woods,

spreading sod seed near pathways,

pulling debris (including old jeans) out of the stream,

and applying/spreading new bark all over the playground.

Some kids and parents from the community even joined in the effort, which was very cool, because they'll feel more of a sense of ownership over the park now that they've helped beautify the area and prepare it for use.We had some law enforcement on hand, mostly because in the past they've found items that required their supervision (namely, a pistol that was found in the woods last year). This year, our woods-cleaners found some drug paraphernalia and a switchblade, so I suppose that shows improvement, right?I think we'd all agree that it was an excellent day and that North Gate Park was left in much better condition than when we arrived. Hopefully the kids and parents who use it will enjoy our work and appreciate their little nature zone for a long time to come.

If It Were Me...

So I was driving on Jefferson Davis, and there was a car stalled in the middle (of 3) lanes. A guy [henceforth known as #1] was pushing the car from behind, so I figured "okay, they've got it covered", assuming that one guy was pushing [#1] and a friend was steering. As I passed, I saw that no one was steering, meaning this guy [#1] was stranded on his own and trying to get out of the road to not jack up traffic.

I turned into the next parking lot that I could and ran back to help. By the time I'd gotten there, a random passerby [#2] was pushing and #1 was steering. I joined in the pushing effort [making me #3 in the situation] and we got the car out of the main road onto a sidestreet. At this point, another helper [man #4] came from where I'd parked and also offered his services.

Once we'd gone a little further, #1 attempted again to start the car, and it fired up. He thanked us [#2-4] and went on his merry way. After short salutations with my comrades-in-aide, we all parted.

I was struck by how great that short example was to me of the kindness and goodness that exists within people. None of these mid-20s to early-30s guys (guessing based on looks) knew each other before, and we didn't expect any payment or direct recompense for our assistance. Nor do we even expect to see each other ever again. In the moment, these thoughts didn't cross my mind. I just knew that if it were me alone with a struggling car stranded in the road, I would hope that others would jump to my aide.

People are good.

IMPACT Day 2008

Note: I'm finishing this post in October 2011. A tad late, but better to have it recorded than to completely forget, right?

There were multiple reasons why I chose to work for Deloitte & Touche. One reason was their dedication to service, which is most visible on the one day per year when the entire firm does community service.

It's called Impact Day, and this was my second one (the first was during my 2006 internship; we cleaned up the interior and exterior of an elementary school in southeast DC). This year, some friends and I chose to do our service at the Smithsonian National Zoo.

Coworkers were assigned to various teams, working on projects from painting to woodworking to landscaping and several more. I ended up on a team that was tasked with making a stone walkway for the zookeepers to be able to walk around the sloth bears exhibit. A few full-time zoo employees showed us how to do the work and helped us get the job done. We worked hard and even finished in less time than they'd anticipated.

Seeing how it's done

Everyone looks tough with a crazy saw like this

Part of our finished path

After our project was done, Deloitte employees from around the zoo and from other work sites met up at the zoo picnic area to have a late lunch and a little party to celebrate having helped the community and giving back. Always good to see my good group of work friends.

Such a great group of work friends!

Once we'd finished with lunch and socializing, we could do enjoy the zoo or go home or do whatever. Well, the zoo workers that I'd helped in the morning let us know that if we wanted to, we could create fake animals that the sloth bears would then maul right before our very eyes. Yes, yes, yes!

My anteater/crocodile creation

The cuddly little guy that chomped my creature

I wish all of my service opportunities ended in seeing a bear demolish cardboard creatures covered in honey. Service can be so much fun!