This month, we would like to highlight one of our incredible funders and partners who was instrumental in YELLS’ return to in-person programming in the summer of 2021. Assurant has been a great supporter of YELLS over the years, always mobilizing their team to give back to our youth, but they really stepped it up last year. In a time of great need and uncertainty for YELLS, this partner took it upon themselves to change our fortunes during a truly difficult time by donating a significant amount of funds to our organization for much-needed repairs. For this reason, we have dedicated this month’s Funder Spotlight to Assurant!
Rewind to August of 2020. YELLS had been closed since March due to the pandemic, with staff only in the space for short periods of time to organize supply drop-offs, food and grocery events, and other family resources while programming remained virtual. Unfortunately, high humidity levels and moisture led to a quick spread of mold that destroyed the carpet in our Afterschool Program space. This posed a serious threat to our operations; there was no way that we could welcome our students back into the building until we found a way to strip the carpet and repair our floors, all of which would cost a small fortune to our organization. We quickly had some amazing volunteers step up to remove the carpeting and address the mold. However, replacing the flooring proved to be much more difficult.
For months our Executive Director, Laura Keefe, strategized to raise funds for this unanticipated project so that we could be ready to open in-person as soon as health conditions allowed. But then in March of 2021, our partners at Assurant reached out to Laura wondering how they could get more involved with YELLS. Assurant has been a wonderful partner in the past and they really believe in the YELLS mission. So when Laura mentioned to them our struggles with finding the funds to repair our floors, immediately they began brainstorming ways that they could help us out in a big way.
“The kids weren’t back with you guys yet, so they were trying to plan for that. One of the things that she wanted was to be able to have the carpet in by then, and she was explaining how this was an unintended expense for the nonprofit,” said Jill Heibult of Assurant. “And so I was on the call and I was like, ‘well, we could do a fundraiser! I don’t know how it could work but, you know, we could do something like that and see what we could come up with.’ And so we put our brains together at Assurant and decided that we were going to do an event called Fund the Foot.”
YELLS and Assurant
Jill Heibult is the strategy chair for Assurant’s Employee Engagement Champion Team for the state of Georgia. Assurant has Engagement Champion Teams at various locations that are responsible for identifying volunteer opportunities for their employees to give back to the community, and Jill’s job is to coordinate these efforts by finding community partners to champion. Jill first heard about YELLS four years ago through an annual volunteer campaign that Assurant does in partnership with United Way, and this ultimately led to a strong relationship between Assurant and YELLS over the years.
“We do a volunteer activity each year during our United Way campaign to benefit one of their partners through United Way,” Jill said. “And we got a whole list of (organizations) and we looked through and were like ‘YELLS, this sounds awesome!’ It’s right around our neighborhood in Cobb County, and we loved the mission and the energy of it. We did our first activity, I think that was four years ago. And that was our first opportunity to work with YELLS.”
In the past, Assurant employees have assembled and donated hundreds of snack packs for our YELLS kids, each decorated with hand-drawn doodles and a personalized note. This was such a fun way for Assurant to get involved with YELLS, and our kids loved it! When Jill and her Assurant team proposed the idea for Fund the Foot, we knew that this was going to be a special moment for YELLS considering all the love they have shown us in the past, although admittedly nobody here really knew what to expect!
Fund the Foot
What followed next was incredible! By May of 2021, with only a few weeks before we were set to reopen our doors for summer camp, we managed to replace our floors at a cost to our organization. While it was by no means ideal, ultimately we had no choice but to fund the repairs before our students returned to YELLS.
Around the same time, our partners at Assurant reached out to us with the special announcement that their company-wide fundraising event, Fund the Foot, was in full swing. They told us that the Assurant Foundation, the charitable portion of Assurant Inc., was doing a 2-for-1 match on all employee donations to Fund the Foot, and on top of that they were gifting YELLS with a special grant specifically for our carpet repair!
This was amazing news! And yet, none of us really knew what to expect when Assurant invited the YELLS staff on a Zoom call to announce the amount raised. Needless to say, that call left us all floored! (pun partially intended)
“We thought it might be maybe $1,000 or $2,000, but they presented to us that they raised $12,000! Then, when the check arrived, it ended up being even higher – $16,300!” Laura said.
All in all, Assurant and the Assurant Foundation donated $16,300 to reimburse YELLS for the cost of installing a new carpet in our building! It is impossible to fully express how grateful we are for this donation, and it went a long way in improving the quality of our services for our families. Ms. Sherri, our Afterschool Program Coordinator, said it made a HUGE difference to the space itself and changed the mood of our building and staff.
“If it hadn’t happened along with being shut down, how would we still be able to run a program while still having our carpet redone? It was really transformative for the space and for us as we got back into the space. It was a big deal!”
And It Doesn’t Stop There!
In classic Assurant fashion, Fund the Foot wasn’t their only contribution to YELLS this year! This past October, Assurant and United Way of Greater Atlanta teamed up to assemble 50 STEAM kits and 50 Literacy kits for our YELLS kids to take home and keep up with their academic enrichment during the holiday breaks!
As we move forward into a new year, we are looking forward to more ways that YELLS and Assurant can come together to serve our youth and the Franklin Gateway community. Thank you again to Assurant and the Assurant Foundation for their continued support of the YELLS mission and our youth!
