Thursday night many of us gathered at PS Audio (my Boulder-based employer) & in lieu of a holiday dinner, gave back to local families in need – an initiative endorsed by our CEO Paul McGowan.

I’m really not a shopper – even for my own family – but when it was all said & done…gifts gathered, wrapped & stacked on the conference room table, felt a sense of pride being involved.

Easy to get caught up in the day-to-day.

Many thanks to PS’ General Manager, Jim who organized this year’s event.

An idea worth spreading by Paul McGowan

 

Christmas is fast approaching and we are reminded this is a time of giving. There are many in our community that haven’t as much as we do. There are families that struggle to make ends meet, to heat their homes, to put healthy food on the table. For some in our community Christmas doesn’t mean opening presents under the tree.  Each year we try and fix that for as many as we can. It’s an idea worth spreading.

 

My wife Terri came up with a plan that puts smiles on family’s faces and builds teamwork at the company. That’s a winning combination by anyone’s standards.

 

There are 25 employees at PS Audio and they, along with their family members, gather one evening after work. The group is divided into four teams and each team is assigned a family in need. Armed with a list of the family’s ages, their wishes for gifts and an envelope filled with cash, each team is sent out for one hour to buy everything on the list. As we scatter through the stores of Boulder, it’s a bit of a frenzy but fun. We meet back with bags of goods and set them up on four tables piled high with the presents. The best sales person on the team has to then present the lot of presents to everyone else and we vote for who did the best job. After the winning team is selected we share pizza, cider and cookies and wrap all the presents.

 

What we do is simple and can be repeated in your community.  We’ve found the families in a number of different ways over the years such as community food bank programs or the local church. The first year PS Audio contributed $50 cash for each family member. This year we upped it to $100 per person. It’s not a lot of money but it brings a lot of joy to families in the community and, perhaps as important, to our team. It’s an event we look forward to each year.

 

It’s an idea worth spreading in your company, your community, or even your family. It’s an idea that needs to be considered this year, not put off to next.

 

Send us a picture when you do. And thank you. It matters.