Top Employee Volunteer is Inspiring Example of Culture of Giving Back
CoverMyMed’s Almeida Dye volunteered more than any other employee in 2020. But the list of inspiring employee-driven accomplishments doesn’t stop there. Here’s a brief review of giving back in 2020.
Almeida Dye’s first job was a candy striper at the former St. Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland. Actually, “job” isn’t quite right — as a 12-year-old candy striper, she was technically a hospital volunteer.
Three decades on, little has changed. Almeida still blurs the lines between her work and volunteer efforts.
“That’s just me,” she said. “I volunteer — it’s something I do, almost like it’s part of my work schedule.”
Indeed, as CoverMyMeds’ top employee volunteer for 2020, Almeida contributed more than 215 volunteer hours to 59 different projects — accounting for nearly 9 percent of the company’s total employee-volunteer hours for the year. In August alone, Almeida finished the month with more volunteer hours than the next closest CoverMyMeds employee did for the whole year. And those efforts don’t count her volunteer work with her church and a Cleveland-area women’s organization.
Though volunteering is second nature to her, Aleida’s competitive fire was stoked after finishing second in total employee volunteer hours for 2018 and 2019. She wasn’t about to repeat as runner-up this year. When CoverMyCommunity 2020, a month-long, company-wide volunteering campaign was extended an extra week due to COVID-19, Almeida saw her chance to wrap up the title.
“I think I was running on fumes and hallucinating with body aches at the end, and then they extended it another week, so I had to go into an even higher gear,” she said with a laugh.
Almeida ended the August campaign with 150 volunteer hours, and by leading her team to victory, the group could donate $5,500 to Buffer Charity, a Twinsburg-based homeless foundation Almeida chose.
Perhaps inspired by Almeida — or the events of 2020 — the rest of our CoverMyMeds team rose to meet the year’s unique challenges, showing once again that giving back is an essential piece of our culture.
CoverMyMed’s Almeida Dye volunteered more than any other employee in 2020. In this video, Almeida describes how our one of CoverMyMeds' Core Value, Be Selfless, inspires her in her job and outside of work.
In August, our employees volunteered more than 1,500 hours during CoverMyCommunity and in the process helped contribute a total of $10,000 to various organizations.
That spirit of giving back isn’t limited to the good we achieved in August, though. As I look back at 2020, I’m struck by the number of our employees who consistently volunteered their time packing and distributing food boxes, delivering care packages to seniors or helping to unload donated items for nonprofit organizations.
For the year as a company, our employees contributed more than 2,500 volunteer hours, with 647 employees working on 236 different non-profit community projects. Additionally, 12 CoverMyMeds employees joined non-profit boards this year, while 30 employees were certified as STEM mentors to work with students in Columbus City Schools in Franklinton and Hilltop.
Through our collaboration with Besa, a non-profit organization that works to connect people to volunteer opportunities, we even found ways to give back in the face of a pandemic.
Inspired by our core values — “Be Selfless,” “Embrace Challenges” and “Results Matter” — our employees stepped up with the Virtual Stay at Home Showcase in May. This event featured performances from our talented staff as part of a fundraising effort, bringing in a total of $16,755 for three participating YWCA chapters experiencing financial hardship.
I’m also proud of 325 STEM Activity Boxes our employees delivered to Franklinton families as part of STEM Day on Nov. 8 and in collaboration with COSI.
And of course, a list of notable employee-driven contributions this year wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Pelotonia, our biggest employee-led fundraiser. Through a silent auction and other fundraisers, our employees helped raised $133,991.94 for Pelotonia — with the assistance of a CoverMyMeds match.
Still, these efforts barely illustrate the full impact our employees made on their communities in 2020. I’ve yet to mention efforts like our work with the Ronald McDonald House or the Mid-Ohio Food Collective. Nor have I mentioned the recognitions our company received this year that wouldn’t be possible without our employees — awards like People Magazine’s Top 50 Companies that Care 2020 or the Medical Mutual Pillar Award for Community Service 2020.
And as I look toward the rest of 2021, I, for one, will take inspiration from Almeida, knowing that whatever I give this year will be matched by the company — and come back to me tenfold.
“Working at CoverMyMeds fuels me — it really does,” Almeida said. “It gives me more passion because the company thinks like I do. I really wish more people had that passion because we could do a whole more than what we do.
“If everyone’s willing to give an hour a month, just doing something for somebody else, just think about what we could do accomplish. And then they’ll see how much of a blessing it is, and they’ll want to return.”
Learn more about our culture and browse open positions by visiting our interactive website.
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