Tocci will be here lending a hand and we’d love to see you here as well!

Habitat Boston needs over 100 volunteers for a tradeshow:

Saturday, August 20 from 3 pm – 10 pm
Sunday, August 21 from 7 am – 1 pm

Vendors at the ORGILL 2011 Boston hardware tradeshow have agreed to donate their sample merchandise to Habitat after the close of the event. We need volunteers to help us take advantage of this tremendous gift and serve more families.

All volunteers must be at least 18 years old.

You can help us collect the merchandise from the vendors after the close of the show, pack and shrink wrap products, label pallets, and get them ready to move into the warehouse. This opportunity will take place at the:

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, 415 Summer Street, Boston, MA.

We are anticipating over 200 pallets of donated goods from Orgill’s almost 900 vendors! We need over 100 volunteers over the two days.

Recruit your friends, neighbors, soccer team, and your co-workers!

To sign up for a shift, email  volunteers@habitatboston.org.

Use ORGILL in the subject line and tell us which day (or days) you want to volunteer…We will confirm your participation and provide more details.

Be a part of something big and help us with this great endeavor!

Well yes.  Johan MacKenzie, Tocci’s comptroller, heads out Sunday evening for her Habitat Global Village trip to Cape Town, South Africa.  This trip is a culmination of her service projects over the past 12 years.  A frequent Habitat volunteer, and more recently an annual New Orleans volunteer, she yearned for a greater challenge and a truer test of her mettle.  This yearning led her to apply for a spot on a Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village team.

To her delight her application was accepted—she was properly vetted, references approved, background check cleared– but a bit daunted by the money she needed to raise:  over $6,000.  Resourceful as ever, she applied to her church for a grant to pay for her flight, dipped into her savings for the personal expenses, and asked Tocci for a donation.

Donation?  No, this type of effort—using your vacation to help people who lack the means to help themselves—deserves a matching grant.  Tocci began a program for employees to apply for a matching funds grant, where the company matches employee donations for projects in line with Tocci vision and values.

In April we kicked off the program at a Wednesday morning coffee break and followed up two weeks later with a fundraising lunch:  homemade meatball subs ‘n salad where we raised $310.  A great beginning.

Mid-May when all the donations were counted and matched, and the check was written out for Habitat, we were close to our goal of $2200.  Not bad for our first shot at Tocci-wide charitable giving,  not bad at all.

Johan has promised to communicate via a blog—hoping to have internet access.  We look forward to updating you on her progress as her team builds a world away.

I’m excited to be traveling to South Africa as a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program. I’ll be working side-by-side with people who need a decent place to live, helping to build simple, affordable houses.

Please visit my Habitat Web page, where you can learn more about my trip:

http://www.habitat.org/cd/gv/participant/participant.aspx?pid=93430103

Thanks,

Johan

There’s a lot of talk in Washington, DC about pulling out of Afghanistan, but right now the US has thousands of “boots on the ground”– and boots belong to people.

Lorrie Guthrie, Tocci’s Human Resource Administrator, has her son Jason serving in Afghanistan. Each week she sends him a box of creature comforts.

Her efforts to show Jason and his unit that their service is appreciated birthed Tocci’s latest “We Restore” project:  donating and assembling “care packages” for men and women serving in a very inhospitable environment–120 degrees and a week or more between showering.

Using guidelines from www.anysoldier.org Lorrie sent employees a list of suggested items to donate.  Most of these items could be purchased at Walgreens or Stop & Shop: magazines, powdered Gatorade, wet wipes, granola bars, pop tarts.  Items were collected over a two-week period and packed during lunch hour. Tocci volunteers enclosed personalized notes of encouragement.

Our goal was to gather enough supplies to fill ten large flat pack postal boxes.  We filled almost twice that many.  We coalesced around the mission of sharing our abundance and showing our appreciation—making our world a better place.

“Education is impossible without the habitual vision of greatness.” Alfred North Whitehead

Tocci is pleased to support the scholarship program at Boston Trinity Academy, one of the few truly integrated schools in Boston and one that combines high expectations for their students with strong faculty support.   BTA was established in 2002 as an academically rigorous and culturally diverse institution built upon the foundation of Christian faith. The school provides an intellectually demanding academic experience that prepares and inspires students from all backgrounds, neighborhoods and perspectives not only to excel but also to serve the public good. Its mission statement

• know and love every student
• help each one to thrive as a whole person
• challenge them with high standards of personal integrity and academic rigor
• offer them a vision of greatness

The faculty is the heart of Boston Trinity Academy. Teachers inspire students to reason and grow as inquisitive, analytical thinkers within the classroom and beyond. Students write and re-write, read the classics, study primary sources, compete in interscholastic athletics, perform Shakespeare, and explore scientific and mathematical concepts. Furthermore, each student is engaged spiritually as well as intellectually, learning what is wise—not merely smart—and the difference between integrity and expediency.

“Who our students are and will become is more important to us than what they will achieve.”  Frank Guerra, Headmaster

“You have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge for the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm”  Isaiah 25:4

Team working on Daisy’s house in 2008

Visiting Daisy in April 2011.

New Orleans remains home to over 50,000 uninhabitable dwellings, six years after Katrina wreaked havoc throughout the South. It is hard to imagine, in the U.S., that stark reminders of this tragedy still remain.

Black Rock Church  www.brcc.org is on a mission to change that with the financial support of many including Tocci.  In the years since Katrina struck, members of the church have traveled to New Orleans to assist in the rebuilding effort. This year, during the week of April 16-23, twenty nine men and women traveled down again. This group split into five teams, each led by a Black Rock Church contractor, to work under the administration of the EFCA Crisis Response www.efca.org on rebuilding five hurricane devastated residences.

But that wasn’t all. When they put the hammers, drills and drywall down for the day, there was another type of rebuilding and re-engagement. One of the team leaders, Craig Samuelson of Samuelson Builders has told us, “three of us visited a home that we worked on in 2008.  Back then, my team was doing final gutting and re-framing when we met Miss Daisy the homeowner.  She was a frail lady in her 80’s whose leg had been amputated after a cut she suffered when fleeing the flood became infected. Even though physically weak, she is strong in spirit.  She insisted on showing her appreciation by serving us a chicken dinner.  It was humbling and gratifying to know that our team played a part in her hope and happiness.”