T-Mobile is known as a nationwide cellular communications network but the company recently made an incredible impact on our small nonprofit organization.
Before we talk about their Earth Week service project, we need to flash back to February 27th. That’s the day T-Mobile Social Media Specialist Chelsea Bailey informed us that we were receiving a $20,000 grant from the T-Mobile Foundation.
Part of the company’s efforts to “amplify our employees’ impact,” The T-Mobile Foundation encourages employees like Chelsea to apply for grants to benefit nonprofit organizations in their local communities. Since T-Mobile is about “enabling everyone to have access to the connectivity, technology, and skills needed to thrive in a digital world,” Chelsea thought give IT. get IT. was a perfect fit.
Happily for us, the judges at the T-Mobile Foundation agreed, and awarded give IT. get IT. one of their largest quarterly grants.
And then things REALLY got interesting. While applying for her winning grant, Chelsea received a lot of guidance and support from her Senior leadership team. Throughout the process, more people at T-Mobile became aware of how we at give IT. get IT. take surplus corporate technology out of the waste stream and put it in the hands of people in need. The more people at T-Mobile learned about us, the more they wanted to help.
A few weeks after receiving our check, Chelsea informed us that her colleagues and leaders from the Social Media Care team would make this into an all-day Earth day project. On Tuesday, April 25th, twenty-eight highly motivated and detail-oriented members of T-Mobile’s Social Media Care Team braved the chilly, drizzly weather and arrived at our facility at 10am.
They split into teams of two to five and took on different beautification tasks.
They turned our overgrown garden into a sculpted landscape feature.
They vacuumed every surface of our facility to remove years of dust and grime.
They dusted every surface and cleaned every window.
They trimmed back invasive vines and overgrown saplings from the side of our building.
T-Mobile even covered the cost of an amazing catered lunch for our staff and their team from our friends at Holy Cannoli in downtown Waterville personally delivered by owner Jason Furchak.
“Processing surplus electronic devices is a dusty business,” Operations Director and co-founder Chris Martin explained. “As much as we try to keep our facility clean, every day brings new loads to organize and new requests for refurbished computers to fulfill. When given a choice between doing the work that enables us to help people or cleaning under cabinets, we always focus on our mission. Thanks to “Team Magenta,” our facility looks better than it has in years, and our employees have an even deeper sense of pride in their work.”
On behalf of all of us at give IT. get IT., THANK YOU, T-Mobile Foundation for your generation $20,000 donation to our scholarship fund and THANK YOU, Team Magenta, from the Oakland site for all your hard work!
