Charity begins at home. The home office, that is!

Our Carlsbad and San Diego teammates engaged in charity events every month in 2016, from gathering holiday gifts and school supplies to fixing meals and cleaning a riverbed. 

Early this year the sunny teams collected 45 much needed bath towels for the Toussaint Academy.  A group of volunteers sacrificed a weekend evening to prepare and serve 102 meals at the Ronald McDonald House. Our ACM coworkers raised $345 for RETT with their annual ValentineGrams. And a Coastal Clean-Up took place on March 15 where six volunteers joined forces with The San Diego River Park Foundation to spruce up the natural habitat at the mouth of the San Diego River.

Cooking at the Ronald McDonald house, L-R: Carolyn Marshall, Elaine Lamb, Anabelle Aban	San Diego River clean-up, L-R: Cheryl Alsagoff, Kelly McMullen, Duane Williams, Lyndi and Jason Antic, Alvin Svitzer

Still in the first quarter, Carlsbad raised $412 in a gift basket raffle for Rady Children’s Hospital and another $172 for RETT with their annual ValentineGrams.

Second Quarter

In April, Penny Wars returned to the San Diego office, with all four floors pitted against each other. Together, they raised $177 and funds went to an Overland Park office charity initiative - Nets Development League and their literacy program, which also provides scholarships for kids to attend upcoming literacy festivals. CyTrika Barnes, customer service rep with Automotive Aftermarket in Overland Park, is a board member and helped host their first literacy festivals this summer in Overland Park and Kansas City, MO. 

In May, the San Diego office also helped out with another Overland Park charity choice for the Make a Wish Foundation. With over a $1,500 contribution, they helped the Overland Park team meet their funding goal.

Third Quarter

The SoCal team led by Stacie Pirrone, ACM’s director of operations and our RETT point person, held their annual Golf Tournament fundraiser for RETT Syndrome in late July. Prior to the tournament they raised a whopping $6,592 in-house with basket and gift card raffles and a breakfast burrito sale. Congrats, ACM!

July also saw our annual San Diego/Carlsbad Summerfest which included a Big Wheel Race for Charity, where teammates donated to see their favorite executive leaders dress up as toddlers and race on giant big wheel bikes to raise money for Children's Heritage Foundation. A total of $2,521 was raised, a lot of jesting was heard, and our execs were all good sports (or should we say, big babies?).

Arrowhead President Steve Boyd and Michael Powell, SVP of product development	ACM Casualty President Dhara Patel and Taylor Burnett, Treasury Manager	Steve Bouker, EVP and president, Residential Earthquake and Becky Pinto, president, Workers' Compensation.

In September, the offices gathered school supplies and other donations for San Pasqual Academy, a teen foster center in Escondido, CA. Thousands of dollars in school supplies - from notebooks to much-needed SAT study books and gym clothes - were contributed. In fact, Arrowhead/ACM/OnPoint was the largest contributor next to Road Runner Sports. 

Fourth Quarter

In November, San Diego Food Bank volunteers from our downtown San Diego office met and in less than half a day, churned out 748 food packages for the Food 4 Kids backpack program. This program provides weekend food packages to chronically hungry elementary school students from low-income households who are at risk of hunger over the weekend when free school meals are unavailable.

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Every Friday afternoon, students on the program are called out of class and discreetly given a bag of food that’s tucked into their backpacks, so as not to stigmatize the kids. Each bag contains enough food to see the students through the weekend. “It’s a well-oiled machine,” said co-organizer Natalie Lara, AVP of Creative and Communications. “Every Friday they turn out 1,600 bags of food for these kids.”   L-R: Sarah Edwards, Natalie Lara, Frankie Ko, Doug Noone

Say thanks to our San Diego and Carlsbad Charity Committee

Gina Crane, Rob Baker, Steve Boyd, Wendy Castelo, Angie Keus, Natalie Lara, Tish Masucci, Stacie Pirrone and Lisa Stahl.

Way to go, San Diego and Carlsbad!