When a single father in St. Joe, Indiana, risked losing custody of his five children because of the condition of his mobile home, school personnel knew who to call for help. It was a task for Anita Bremer, nurse and safety coordinator at Nucor Fastener. She mobilized her co-workers to make repairs, clean, stock the refrigerator and cupboards with food, provide furniture, and clothe the kids.
For the past 16 years, Bremer's group has been doing good works and raising money, which the company often matches, to support their efforts. In 1997 Bremer went to Washington, D. C., to receive a Jefferson Award for community service. She accepted it on behalf of her co-workers who donate money, bring in used toys and clothes, or perform labor.
24 Bunk Beds
It started when Bremer asked employees if they could build bunk beds for a shelter. "After they committed, I told them it would be 24 beds," she says. Employees worked on their own time, occupying one employee's barn to mill the lumber and make components, and another's garage for a staining party. Others made quilts. They borrowed company trucks to deliver the beds, along with mattresses and bedding they bought.
The plant, which manufactures steel nuts and bolts, employs 220 people. Bremer and a core group of five to 10 people mobilize charitable efforts, and nearly all employees participate at some level. The group operates informally without a name, officers, by-laws, meetings, or treasurer's report. Instead of posting a need on a bulletin board, they get out the news by word of mouth.
Most employees live in St. Joe and surrounding towns with a total population of about 2,000. Some come from Fort Wayne, 30 miles away. As several examples illustrate, it takes a factory to raise a child:
• Nate Krafft is a healthy, rambunctious 9-year-old who started life with multiple heart defects that required several surgeries. He had to be tube fed every two hours. His mother, Deb, says, "I was overwhelmed. Nucor people bought Nate's prescription formula, and they came by once a week with an evening meal. Anita made a big quilt for me. At Christmas, they took us on a shopping trip."
Before Nate became eligible for respite care, Bremer occasionally arranged weekend get-aways for Krafft and her husband and hired an intensive care nurse to stay with Nate. "One time, we had to send one of our guys to repair the nurse's car so she could get to the job," says Bremer.
As Nate's health improved, his mother occasionally took him to visit Nucor. "I still run into people who ask about him," she says.
• Currently the Nucor workers are helping the family of 12-year-old "Andy" who is very sick with scleroderma, a chronic infection that affects skin, joints, and blood vessels. Both parents have lost their jobs.
Nucor folks arranged for Andy to be treated at Shriners Hospital in Chicago. They also connected him with Make-a-Wish, and gave him new clothes and spending money for his dream trip to Dollywood. They paid the family’s gas bills over the winter and bought groceries. One employee fixed the family's car.
When Nucor Data Specialist Denise Harper saw Andy's mother at a community auction, she learned she was selling her children's toys in order to buy groceries. So Harper and her co-workers bought the kids all new toys.
• Often employees are the ones who identify a need. In 2000 Nucor Sales Representative Don West put Bremer in touch with Kathy Stevens, whom he knew from calling on Structural Bolt in Nashville, Tennessee. Stevens' son had died in an accident the year before and now the son's three-year-old daughter, Becca, was hospitalized with stage 5 myelogenous leukemia.
Bremer and her co-workers showered Becca with gifts. "One day I received a monstrous box with baby dolls, toys, pretend make-up, coloring books, and a quilt for Becca," says Stevens. "I told Becca the angels sent them."
Stevens says Bremer called her before Christmas that year to say someone had just dropped a $100 bill on her desk to remember Becca at Christmas. "A box arrived with Christmas quilts for Becca and me, toys for Becca and her brothers, and a $500 Wal-Mart gift card."
• When Nucor employee Ed Snyder went on a mission to India, Bremer and some of her cohorts made 150 quilts to send with him, and last year they sent 200 quilts to Romania.
Fun With Fundraising Bremer and her helpers sometimes raise money by serving lunch to their fellow employees in exchange for a donation. One such meal turned into a ham-and-beans cookoff between Bremer and production supervisor Charlie Shay. "He brags that he's the world's greatest cook, but the guys voted mine the best," says Bremer.
"She'd never made ham and beans in her life," says Shay. "She beat me with my own recipe."
"Charlie will bring in food and raise $300, $400, or $500 on the $150 he spent," says General Manager Scott Wulff. "It's a $3 a meal fundraiser, but people put in $5, $10, or $20."
Often, money and goods just appear. "Recently all employees got a $100 gift card from WalMart or wherever we wanted, and one young guy with two small children asked me to give it to a child who really needed it," says Bremer. "I gave it to a kid who had been in a full body cast for a month, and her family was going through tough times."
Many employees solicit their friends and families for good used items. Some purchases go on Bremer's credit card.
Wulff says that sometimes he has to ask if the company can contribute. "Unlike other places I've worked, I'm almost having to push the company in the door and say, 'Hey, we can match that.'"
He estimates that the company spends from $20,000 to $30,000 a year for charitable activities and that employees spend a comparable amount.
What Sustains Them?
Many companies have employees who will respond to an occasional community crisis, but what has kept Nucor people seeking out opportunities to help for 16 years?
Workplace environment might have something to do with it. Nucor Corporation, the parent company of Nucor Fastener, has a reputation for promoting teamwork and employee satisfaction along with high productivity that enables the company to be competitive in the challenging global steel market. Employees are among the best compensated in manufacturing. About half the employees of Nucor Fastener have at least 15 years of service.
"I'd like to think that the way the company treats people helps to foster camaraderie and a desire to share," says Wulff. "Everybody cares for everybody else. If somebody is ill, they'll take turns stopping by with meals or to say hello. One of our corporate values is to be cultural stewards in communities where we live and work, and a lot of Nucor divisions do a little bit of this, but not as much as we do. They rely more on the company."
Charitable work had taken on a life of its own long before Wulff joined the company two years ago. He thinks the fact it's a voluntary, grassroots effort is the main driver. "Here it's the people who make it successful. Everybody has different areas of responsibility, and their initiative is valued. Some like to be out there helping people, others like to be behind the scenes doing fundraisers. It helps to have top down support, but the folks created it and that's why it works."
The Rewards
The rewards for good works include photos, thank-you cards, and hugs, along with the satisfaction of knowing efforts have helped others.
Does it make bottom line business sense for a company to encourage philanthropy? "There are paybacks," says Wulff. "People in the community know we're good folks, and there's goodwill and teamwork that come out of people working toward a common goal they've chosen outside the workplace. But you can't reconcile that it's a good business investment. You go with your heart because it's the right thing to do, not because there's a return. It's a feel-good thing. When Andy comes over for Christmas and you see he's better than the year before, that's great."
It was also great to learn in January that tests showed Becca to be free of leukemia. "It's a miracle, and Nucor is part of our miracle," says Stevens. "My goal one day is to take Becca on a road trip to meet our angels at Nucor."
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