When I found out that our store needed a captain to form a team to participate in the American Heart Association’s local Heart Walk, I jumped at the opportunity! This is our first year participating in the Heart Walk, which raises awareness for heart disease and stroke, currently America’s No. 1 and No. 4 causes of death. I love working for a company who believes in connecting with our community and giving their employees the resources to live healthier, stronger lives. What better way to foster our culture than by supporting research for heart health while educating our employees??!!
I worked with two other Prime-timers (that’s what we call our part-time employees since they work during “prime” time) from the Paramus store; Bobbie and Lisa, to get our Heart Walk team, “Contain Your Heart,” up and running. We encouraged other employees to participate in the annual Heart Walk by talking about it in our huddles, voicemails and by making flyers to post in the back room. The response was phenomenal! By the end of the month, we had 15 employees signed up for the Heart Walk. We created a stunning five foot thermometer to record our fundraising progress and we were ready to go!
Our fundraising goal was a hefty $2,000! In addition to getting the word out to our friends and family, we organized two bake sales for the Paramus employees during all store meetings. The break room was full of delicious, heart healthy snacks. We also decided to take advantage of the spring cleaning season and hold not one, but two garage sales at an employee’s home! The whole Paramus store and even some of our customers enthusiastically helped out with donated items for the sale!! Many employees volunteered their time to help setup shop, hand out flyers to increase heart disease awareness and sell some great products during the garage sales. We all broke out our Man in the Desert Selling and visual sales skills and created two wildly successful, fun garage sales.
After all of our fundraising efforts, we were able to donate a fabulous $2,336 to the American Heart Association. Before the walk, a group of us met at the Colonial Diner in Lyndhurst, NJ, to enjoy some delicious breakfast before joining hundreds of people at the Heart Walk to support the fight for heart disease and stroke. We heard amazing stories of survival, had a fun and invigorating warm up, and a nice four-mile walk. It was truly wonderful to see the whole Store get together, along with friends, family, and our community to help support our goal to make this year’s Paramus The Container Store Heart Walk team successful.
– Liz, Paramus store, One year
