The holiday season is upon us. It’s a time to enjoy and appreciate family and friends, and a time to think about those less fortunate than us. Like the industries we serve, ADD Systems believes in giving back, and this year we have continued our commitment to help children in need.
Pajama Program
ADD Systems proudly supports the Pajama Program, a charity that collects new pajamas and books for children in difficult circumstances. Their goal is to have each child begin the morning “with the energy and spirit to make every day positive, happy and hopeful.” Allyson Wright and Amy Katsigiannis, in the New Jersey office, and Chris Kiernan, in the Rhode Island office, have begun gathering books and PJ donations through our annual movie night, 50/50, raffle and more.
Devereux Florida Organization
Another charity ADD supports is the Devereux Florida organization, “the largest not-for-profit provider of child welfare, behavioral health and intellectual/developmental disabilities services in the state.” Rhonda Matlack from ADD’s Orlando office, has helped to organize raffles and an employee-sponsored brunch, and, this year, they added a Dessert Day – a day when employees gave a small donation to taste each other’s homemade sweets.
Sun Youth
Our Montreal office will continue their commitment to Sun Youth. They provide holiday food baskets and new toys to people in need. Maria Scandella from ADD‘s Quebec office is organizing the collection of items and hoping to donate even more than last year.
Smile Train
ADD Systems also continues to support the Smile Train. An international charity, Smile Train provides completely free cleft lip and palate repair surgery and full cleft care to children in more than 85 developing countries. Bruce and Gale Bott have been committed to this charity for many years and hope to help more children every year.
Feeding America/Feeding Canada
In honor of our 45th anniversary this year, ADD chose to contribute to the charity, Feeding America/Feeding Canada. A team of ADD employees, including Tracie Nall, Amy Katsigiannis, Allyson Wright, Andy Wells, and Jared Daly introduced ADD to Charity Miles. It is an app that tracks every mile you walk, run or bike and will donate a certain amount per mile to Feeding America or other select charities. ADD employees have taken to it, to say the least. We surpassed our original goal and are still working for more.
Another one of our charity team members, George Francy, organized multiple food drives, for which ADD co-workers provided four large boxes of food and supplies. They benefited Table of Hope, a food pantry in Morristown, which is part of the Feeding America network. ADD’s Orlando office collected food and monetary donations as well and made two deliveries to the Montverde United Methodist Church Food Pantry. George shared that, “What I’ve learned about this issue is that poverty is the real problem. We’re lucky; we have reliable hours at a stable job. But for a lot of hourly workers in this “on-demand” economy, without steady income, there can be choices between paying the electric bill or for medication. When they come up short they rely on food pantries like Table of Hope.”
Join Us!
We hope you will join ADD Systems in supporting these children’s charities or one of the many other charities that deserve our attention. For information on how you can contribute to these organizations, please visit their websites. We hope you enjoy this season of giving.
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