I went to the Corporate Volunteer Council of Greater Boston (CVC) Year-End Meeting last night at Harpoon Brewery. Given the time of year, it was a small gathering of about 30 people. What we didn’t have in numbers, we made up for with good conversation, good cheer, good food, and free beer (thanks Harpoon!).
I met Dan Leonard from Genzyme. He’d just come in from Kendall Square on his bike. After stowing his helmet, I said hello, and we were off. Get two bike riders together and they’ll talk about bikes all night. Shortly after, Charlie Storey, Harpoon’s VP of Marketing, joined Dan and me. We chatted some about biking, especially the Harpoon Brewery to Brewery Ride (affectionately known to riders as the “B2B”), the single-day, 148-mile bike ride from Boston to Windsor, VT that Harpoon has sponsored since 2001.
(See my post on the B2B at https://www.tra360.com/?p=2550.)
More to the point of last night’s meeting, Charlie told us that about 180 Harpoon employees donated about 8,200 hours of community service in 2010. The company supports major charities like: Dana Farber Cancer Institute, dedicated to cancer research, treatment, and education; Vermont Foodbank (Vermont’s largest hunger-relief organization), and The Angel Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting ALS investigations at the Cecil B. Day Laboratory for Neuromuscular Research at UMASS Medical under the leadership of Dr. Robert H. Brown Jr. In addition, Charlie also told us that Harpoon donated to over 200 other charities during the course of the year. These are AMAZING STATS for a company the size of Harpoon!!!
Janelle Woods and Anne Bowie, CVC Executive Committee Members, shared some opening remarks about CVC, its core mission, and appeal for membership. Then Regina McNally, another CVC Executive Committee Member, presented the 2011 Corporate Volunteer Council of Greater Boston Award to Harpoon which Charlie Storey graciously accepted. His words about Harpoon’s commitment to community service since their founding in 1986 were true inspiration to all of us.
TRA360 will be joining the CVC in September 2011. We look forward to getting to know our colleagues and doing more community service in Greater Boston.