The Power of Giving Back: Strengthening Relationships and Building Community
Volunteering is a great opportunity to give back to others, strengthen relationships, and build community. That’s why Meraki encourages and supports employees who donate their time to causes near to their hearts. Through Meraki Gives, an employee resource organization (ERO), there are many opportunities to volunteer. To understand more about the giving back culture at Meraki, we spoke with Kelly Carter, Meraki Gives Canada Lead, who shares about the power of volunteering.
Can you tell us about the organization you volunteer with, Kerr Street Mission?
Kerr Street Mission is a food bank and resource center based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, that facilitates a wide range of events to support the local community. Kerr Street Mission prepares meals, provides fresh groceries, organizes clothing drives, and offers after-school youth programs and financial planning services to members, among other support. With the ultimate goal of helping people get out of poverty, this nonprofit is an all-encompassing community organization that serves local families.
How do you volunteer with Kerr Street Mission?
I volunteer mostly by helping prepare and serve dinner to community members. I’ve also participated in clothing drives to ensure families had the clothes they needed for the season. If a particular article of clothing hadn’t been donated, I would go shopping for the family to get them what they needed.
How did Meraki Gives support your volunteer efforts with Kerr Street Mission?
I became involved with Kerr Street Mission through neighbors who had invited me to volunteer with them. My experience volunteering was so positive that I wanted to get more people involved and I saw an opportunity to develop a partnership between Kerr Street Mission and Meraki Gives. Meraki Gives agreed to fund a Kerr Street Mission community dinner. Both Cisco and Meraki team members and their families volunteered at the event. Not only was I proud that Meraki Gives partnered with Kerr Street Mission, I had the best time volunteering and bonding with my coworkers. It was a great experience!
What motivated you to give back and how has the experience been meaningful to you?
When my family and I moved to Oakville (where Kerr Street Mission is located), it was important to me to find community and be a good neighbor. I started volunteering with Kerr Street Mission because I believe in their values and I’m impressed by how they help the local community. I love that they offer members fresh produce, fish, meat, and dairy products, in addition to canned and packaged essentials, on a weekly basis. I also appreciate that they help entire families by providing engaging programs for kids and helping adults reach their financial goals. Volunteering with this organization aligned with my personal values, which is meaningful in and of itself, but what elevated my experience was volunteering with my co-workers and my son. For me, giving back has helped me build community and fulfill my life’s purpose: helping others.
How is “giving back” at the core of Meraki values?
“Everybody in” is one of the core values of Meraki. To me, this value means that Meraki believes in the power of working together and giving back. Our internal culture of giving back is reflected externally through our participation in volunteering and helping others.
This core value has been reinforced over the seven years I’ve worked at Meraki. Team leaders often organize volunteer opportunities for their teams to participate in together. Meraki highlights volunteer stories and puts a lot of effort into ensuring giving back is an active and accessible part of Meraki culture. When I joined Meraki, I was already volunteering on my own and Meraki was volunteering as a company. This alignment underscored that Meraki was a good fit for me.
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