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“SPARKLING CHILDREN’S EYES ARE OUR MOTIVATION.“
Personal commitment truly matters at ALTANA. And it doesn’t end at the factory gate. Employees at ELANTAS PDG in St. Louis, USA, have been supporting people in their neighborhood on a voluntary basis for years. Francine Jamison is one of these staff members.
“It is part of our corporate culture to help people in need quickly and uncomplicatedly. And we do this not just as a one-time campaign, but over many years, if necessary,” says Francine Jamison, Executive Administrative Assistant at ELANTAS PDG. The employees prove this time and time again. When a colleague lost everything in a fire, for example, they helped him quickly and straightforwardly.
Employees of the insulation materials specialist for the electrical and electronics industry provide energetic support to people in the neighborhood who need a helping hand – and have been doing so for more than 13 years with some projects.
About half of all the employees at the St. Louis site are involved in various projects. “And on a volunteer basis,” Francine Jamison points out. Among the most important projects are the social initiatives Back to School Supplies and Annual Holiday Drive.
Die Mitarbeiter von ELANTAS PDG in St. Louis unterstützen die Menschen aus der Nachbarschaft und helfen, ein Strahlen auf die Gesichter zu zaubern. Manche Projekte werden schon seit mehr als 13 Jahren unterstützt. Francine Jamison koordiniert unter anderem das Projekt „Back to School Supplies“.
Many Neighborhood Projects, Carefully Selected
At the Annual Holiday Drive every year in November and December, employees donate gifts and money for neighborhood families. Residents of the Baden district where ELANTAS PDG is located often have very low incomes, and some have no income at all. The ELANTAS PDG employees helped five families in St. Louis in 2019, making it possible for them to receive gifts such as shoes, toys, clothing, and sometimes even a basket of food under their Christmas tree. For more than 25 years, ELANTAS employees have helped put a smile on the faces of families at Christmas – sometimes very practically, disguised as Santa Claus.
With the second major initiative, Back to School Supplies, needy children from the neighborhood have been receiving support for more than ten years. Money collected by the employees is used to buy school supplies such as exercise books and pens and to provide about 25 schoolchildren with these items every year as a basis for their education. “It’s wonderful to see the children’s sparkling eyes when they receive the school supplies. That’s our motivation,“ says Francine Jamison, who coordinates this aid project at ELANTAS PDG.
Given the many requests for support, Francine Jamison and her colleagues are the first to gather information about the proposed projects. Then, based on their research, the management decides in the fall which initiatives will be supported in the following year in keeping with the motto “helping people to help themselves.” The Back to School Supplies and Annual Holiday Drive projects are always included. And will be again in 2020.
The numerous awards ELANTAS PDG has received as a top employer show that the climate of support reflects back on the company. Since 2013, the company has been on the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper’s Top Workplaces list five times. In this respect, too, the employees have been demonstrating exceptionally high personal commitment for years: The evaluation is based exclusively on an employee survey. More than 80 percent of the workforce is regularly involved in this process.