This post is sponsored by TeamBonding and the #DoGoodBus. TeamBonding coordinates and facilitates corporate outings and activities that help the individuals within an organization bond outside the office, fostering a more cohesive team during the 9 – 5.
The BostInno crew outside Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly in Jamaica Plain
The team at BostInno spends a great deal of time together. Between cranking away in the newsroom, networking with the community at our events throughout the year, and even getting our sweat on for team runs on Wednesday afternoons, there’s no shortage of facetime amongst coworkers.
But this month, we wanted to try something a little different and spent a Friday volunteering together for a local charity contributing to Social Good in the greater Boston area. Our initiative was made possible by TeamBonding, a company that manages all the logistics to coordinate team bonding outings for organizations of all sizes.
Here’s how it went down:
We arrived at work not knowing where we’d be headed for a full day of volunteering. Mid-morning, the #DoGoodBus, a decked out school bus complete with leather lounge seats, plenty of speakers, and snacks, pulled up to our office in Faneuil Hall. We hopped aboard, crafted nametags featuring some pretty entertaining nicknames, and spent the ride divided into teams playing Pictionary and name-that-tune with TV theme songs.
As it turns out, the Pictionary game was themed along with our activity for the day, featuring drawings of “telephone calls”, “birthday cards” and “grandmas”. As we got closer to the destination, our TeamBonding facilitators let us know that we’d be spending the afternoon helping out at an organization called Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly.
Little Brothers is a national network of non-profit, volunteer based organizations committed to relieving isolation and loneliness among the elderly by offering people of good will the opportunity to join the elderly in friendship and celebration of life. Little Brothers coordinates socials that bring together those that might not have families or may be out of touch with their relatives, and offers services including transportation and companionship for doctors appointments, assistance with grocery shopping, and even simple phone calls to check-in and chat with local elders.
When the manual labor was completed, many of us wrote personal letters to be mailed to the elders while others from our sales department picked up the phone and called community members to see how their days were going. One BostInno employee was on the phone with a jolly old man who sang her songs for eighty minutes straight — and he was good!
By 3 p.m. it was time to head out, and the Do Good Bus rolled in front of the Little Brothers house. We snapped a group photo and headed back to the office as some of our colleagues dominated in another round of name-that-movie-soundtrack.
It was great to help this charity and give back to those less fortunate than ourselves, and the funny stories from the day will be laughed about for many happy hours to come. Thank you to Little Brothers for allowing us to get out of the office and contribute to their honorable mission, and to TeamBonding for organizing the experience.
