Enhancing lives: Volunteer activities are helping people in communities near Amcor sites

Tell us about your volunteering activities – what motivated you to get involved?

My son went off to college this year, so I had a lot more free time and wanted to get involved with a project in my community. Nonprofit organizations are very different than businesses, and I was keen to learn about that world and help make a positive impact. I looked at a few possible opportunities. Then my manager asked if I wanted to represent Amcor at a fundraising event for a local charity.

The charity was Christine Ann Domestic Abuse Services. The event was its annual “Men Who Cook” activity. Around 50 men from our community cooked special dishes that 400 attendees then tasted and voted for. Together with my colleague, Jeremy Winsor, we were voted one of the top three chefs and helped raise a record amount for the event. That money is now supporting people right here in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley.

I kept talking to the team at Christine Ann after the event. They’re going through a lot of change right now, expanding into a new facility to increase the services they’re able to offer. It’s an exciting time and I wanted to help make it a success. So I joined the organization’s board of directors in June.

What inspires your commitment to activities like this?

This is my community. I’ve lived in the Fox Valley for more than 22 years and it’s become my home. My kids were born and raised here. And I’ve been working for this company in one way or another during that entire time, via acquisition and other changes. Amcor is one of the largest local employers and it’s important to show the community who we are. My team and colleagues all live here too. So it’s natural that we want to give something back and try to make this a better place to live.

How is volunteering integrated into your work at Amcor?

Our team has done several volunteering events and I’m always looking for ways to build more of these community projects into our team-building activities. In the past, we’ve spent time volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to support neighborhood beautification. We also helped pack food staples for Feeding America to distribute to local food pantries that help serve Northeast Wisconsin.

It’s truly amazing to see how excited everybody gets when we engage in volunteering activities as a team. That helps build morale and a strong culture among our people. And it benefits our local community, too.

How does this fit into Amcor’s overall approach to community engagement?

Honestly, I wasn’t aware of everything our Amcor Cares Foundation does until a few years ago. It’s awesome. The Foundation supports such a huge range of projects in an incredible variety of ways. Each year, more than $2 million of AFNA profits are invested to support charitable organizations. Everybody can get involved and make a real-world contribution to the communities where we live and work.

One great example is our “Dollars for Doers” program. It doubles the positive effect of our support for nonprofit organizations and schools. The Foundation donates $10 for every hour that an Amcor employee spends volunteering, and it matches monetary donations, too. That’s a great way to boost our impact on the local community. And it makes me deeply proud of our Amcor team.