Morgan Drexen Steps up to the Challenge to Help Orange County Rescue Mission
When word got out that the Orange County Rescue Mission was in dire need of food donations for the holidays, Morgan Drexen employees responded. In a BIG way.
Workers at the company’s Costa Mesa headquarters launched a two-week food drive. When it was all done, more than 2,100 pounds of food and other critical household items had been collected. The Morgan Drexen van was stuffed as full as a Thanksgiving turkey for its trip to the Orange County Rescue Mission in Tustin. Officials at the mission called it the largest donation of the holiday season to date. They estimate a donation of that size could produce more than 4,200 meals for homeless men, women and children in Orange County.
“We can’t do what we do if it weren’t for you guys,” says Kristin Bruce of the Development Department for the Orange County Rescue Mission. “We wouldn’t have any work to do. I think that we kind of get to be the vehicle that delivers it to the people that need it, but there wouldn’t be anything to deliver if we didn’t have friends, or relationships or a community that supported us like you guys did. [Our clients] are so grateful. Their lives are being changed because of you guys.”
Much of the credit for the overwhelming success of the food drive goes to Jake Jacobsen, Morgan Drexen’s Director of Information Technology. He proposed a competition among employees on all five floors of Morgan Drexen’s Costa Mesa headquarters – the floor that collected the most items would be declared the winner. The only prize for the victorious floor: a sense of pride and satisfaction in collecting the most donations for a very worthy cause.
In the end, employees on the fourth floor, populated by the Client Services and Creditor Relations departments, came out on top. Jacobsen, who has previous ties to the Orange County Rescue Mission, is thrilled Morgan Drexen’s 340-plus employees responded to his challenge.
“It started with the idea of having the IT department all pitch in some money and we could go shopping for some food to donate,” explains Jacobsen. “Then I figured it might be fun to challenge another department to try to bring in more. By the end of the day we had challenged almost every department in the building. The winner of the challenge doesn’t really matter, because in the end, all the food goes to help people in need during the holidays.”
The piles of collected donations included stuffing, pasta, cereal, rice, canned vegetables, sweet potatoes, beans, clothing, blankets, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and countless other household items.
The Orange County Rescue Mission provides food, housing, medical and support services to homeless men, women, children and families throughout Orange County, helping them to become self-sufficient. Mission officials say the recent economic downturn has resulted in a sharp decrease in donations, all while the need has simultaneously gone up. To learn more, or to donate, click here (http://www.rescuemission.org/).
