Animals at the La Porte County Animal Shelter are in for a treat thanks to recent contributions from American RENOLIT. The plastic film manufacturer donated a variety of items to help out the furry friends as part of the company’s incentive to give back to those in the La Porte County area.
“We have pretty much everything on the list from cleaning supplies to baby food for elderly cats. There’s also peanut butter, toys, blankets, just about anything you can think of,” Management and Human Resources Assistant, Alexandra (Alex) Bachert said.
The decision to help the shelter out stemmed from seeing such a strong demand for animal shelter donations online. When numerous posts from many different shelters crossed Human Resources Director Melissa Gruber’s Facebook feed asking for donations, it really put into perspective just how much help they truly needed.
“I had seen just all kinds of Facebook posts for all the animal shelters in the area about being desperately in need of supplies because they're so full,” she said.
American RENOLIT also encourages feedback from its team members, who brought the La Porte County Animal Shelter in particular to attention.
“We have a social committee that we ask where we want our community involvement to go towards,” Human Resources Administrator Lindsey Doperalski said. “We had a couple of people suggest our local animal shelter, and that's what we chose to do for this event.”
“We know that it is an area in our community that needs a lot of help right now, especially with everybody needing additional things,” Doperalski added. “With there being such a need at the animal shelter right now, it's nice to be able to be involved and to know we're helping a cause that really needs it right now.”
With a plan in action, it was then time for the American RENOLIT team to start gathering all that was needed. The staff also decided to have some fun when it came to collecting donations and challenged each shift to see who could contribute the most when it came to gathering all the supplies.
“We actually did a contest with all of our shifts to see who could raise the most in donations,” Gruber said. “The winner of that contest was our C shift (night shift), and they did an outstanding job, but we had a lot of donations from all of the shifts. We also bought a meal for the contest winners - It's kind of an incentive for everybody to participate.”
American RENOLIT is a big proponent of helping out and giving back to other businesses and nonprofits throughout the area and is involved with such events two to three times each year. While this was the first time the company has donated to the shelter, past events included collecting school supplies for students and teachers for La Porte Community Schools, as well as hosting a donation drive for the PAC Center, also in La Porte.
“It's really important for us to have that community involvement both as a company and to have our employees feel like they're a part of it,” Gruber said. “By doing this they all know that they are contributing to having this community and where we see a need, we want to help out.”
Looking ahead, American RENOLIT is now beginning to prepare for the holiday season.
“Right now we're going to be working on a Christmastime event,” Gruber said. “We do a 50/50 raffle with our employees and that's where we adopt a family. We have adopted many families in the last 13 years, and in the last couple of years, we've adopted first year teachers in the La Porte schools, but we've worked our way up to the high school. Now, we're looking for who we will be adopting next. This will also be discussed with our Social Committee.”
Those at American RENOLIT enjoy working with a team that is very community-centered and welcoming others to come to join the team who also have a passion for giving back. Visit the website here to learn more about open positions, as well as more about the company, today.