“Our company, Medosweet Farms in Kent, started volunteering our time and resources to Fostering Together, a foster parent recruitment and retention program through Olive Crest (a LRF non-profit partner), in September of 2015. We sponsor a dinner the 4th Wednesday of every month: that means plan, shop, and prepare the meal and clean up after. When we first started doing the dinners we struggled to get volunteers but we eventually gathered a few people from work and created a simple dinner. From its inception it was so much fun and rewarding.
The word got out and suddenly everyone wanted to volunteer. We had different departments at Medosweet Farms wanting to be involved and even do creative theme-night types of dinners. There was Italian night, potato bar night, a Halloween theme night, and this month we are doing “Breakfast for Dinner” serving pancakes, french toast, ham, sausage, fresh cut strawberries with whip cream, and scrambled eggs with cheese and mini muffins.
Christmas was the “Grand Finale” and our employees went all out with a turkey dinner and all the trimmings. For this event, we requested and received a list of the families’ children and their ages. Our employees bought and wrapped 57 gifts for the children. I could tell by the look on the children’s and the parent’s faces that not only did they value the dinner and the gifts but they valued us!
The monthly charity dinner has gotten to be such a great event and it gives our employees a chance to not only give back to the Community but a real chance for them to bond with their team members at Medosweet Farms. We certainly are humbled by the opportunity to serve this group and as it turns out, this act of servitude has reversed itself: we now know that it is each one of us who are getting the greatest gift of all, and that’s the love and admiration of the people we serve. In the end, we have certainly bonded with the people we serve and that’s a gift back to us. We had no idea how this was going to turn out in the beginning but it has certainly taken on a life of its own.
ERIC FLINTOFF, CEO
PO BOX 749
KENT, WA 98035
