Corporate Social Opportunity: It’s a marathon, not a sprint
&Barr Launches CSO Program

By: Vanessa Reyna, PR Assistant Account Executive

During our 65th anniversary year kick-off celebration in July, &Barr officially announced our Corporate Social Opportunity program (CSO). The program focuses on three core pillars we themed Past, Present, and Future. The Past pillar focuses on two charities of choice, including Seniors First and The Historical Society. The Present pillar includes Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando & Osceola County and the YMCA of Central Florida. And last, the Future pillar supports the Ad/PR programs at UCF and UF and the 4A’s MAIP. Read our blog announcing our CSO program to learn more about how we chose these impactful nonprofits.

One of our agency’s many team member benefits is eight hours of paid Volunteer Time Off (VTO) per quarter, four hours to use on our &Barr-selected nonprofits and the other four hours to use on any nonprofit that fulfills their personal passions. To ensure our CSO program was accessible for our busy team members, we developed a dedicated Teams channel for volunteering opportunities, added volunteer events to our agency calendar, and sent a regular cadence of messages encouraging team members to participate.

We kicked off our efforts with Seniors First by adopting a route with its weekly meal delivery service, Meals on Wheels. Since October, &Barr has delivered fully prepared, nutritious meals to seniors in need each week. Together we’ve volunteered over 40 hours and helped Seniors First add over 200 new Meals on Wheels clients to its network. In addition to adopting a route, we have also volunteered at Seniors First’s Community Food Pantry, helping with restocking, organizing, preparing baskets of goods, and distributing to clients in its drive-through pantry.

&Barr also stepped in to help the community after the devastation of Hurricane Ian by participating in Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando & Osceola County’s Clean Bucket Drive. We came together to donate about 40 buckets of essential cleaning supplies to our neighbors in need.

In addition to donating our time, &Barr has also supported the Orange County Regional History Center by sponsoring monthly events throughout the year. Most recently, &Barr sponsored the History Center’s January programming, Lunch & Learn: A Century of the Orlando Public Library.

We’re looking forward to continuing to live our mission, vision, and values by executing our CSO programs and will continue sharing our experiences in hopes of inspiring others to join us. Together, we’re demonstrating our commitment to the community and industry we’ve proudly been a part of for 65 years and counting.

If your company needs professional expertise to develop and implement a CSO program, contact
erin.pagan@andbarr.co to help you get started with the new year.