United Way Day of Action at GPB

United Way marked its 125th Anniversary in true United Way style, by asking others to get involved in their communities to celebrate with them in a Day of Action. At GPB, we decided to join in by making as many sandwiches as possible during our lunch breaks on Thursday. We brought in bread, peanut butter and jelly (grape, strawberry, and a lone jar of apple – my personal childhood favorite) all week long. We set a goal of 300 sandwiches, not really knowing how long or how many supplies it would take to achieve that goal. Yesterday, we rallied and commenced to making sandwiches at long, colorfully covered tables, donned our plastic gloves and set to work.

We happen to be in the very fortunate position of needing to work closely throughout the building on numerous projects at one time. So, we’re naturals at working together toward a goal. This one was different, though, as there was no pressure to file reports afterward and we didn’t need any meetings before or after it. We just showed up, worked together and enjoyed a truly worthwhile team-building project. The atrium was filled with the hum of positivity and good will as we coated the table as much as the slices of bread, relaxed, and joked around together.

All together, we made 342 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which is about 31 loaves of bread, should you decide on a similar project in the future. They were then driven to Fishes and Loaves, a program in southeast Atlanta where 200 homeless men are served meals twice a day. In an hour and a half, nearly everyone dropped in to give as much time as they could to help out. While I don’t think anyone took a head count, I think it’s safe to say that we had around 50 folks donating supplies and building sandwiches.

We would like to give a special thank you to Zoes Kitchen for donating delicious snacks to sustain us. You can see the slideshow below for some photos of the fun. While I’m fairly certain there is a lingering aroma of peanut butter in the building today, there is also pride in knowing that we were able to work together to support our community.

Happy 125th Anniversary, United Way. Thanks so much for all you do and for inviting us to join you in a Day of Action.