New River Electrical Corporation has been a longtime financial partner with Feeding Southwest Virginia, an organization that has been devoted to fighting hunger and changing lives for the past 40 years.
Over the past year, New River Electrical has made the commitment to identify opportunities to increase its involvement in supporting Feeding Southwest Virginia’s critical mission: to eliminate hunger in our region.
NRE’s leadership team along with leadership at Feeding Southwest Virginia determined that there were two key opportunities where the partnership could be expanded to help feed more people in the community: Days of Service and a Truck Sponsorship.
Days of Service
Here at New River Electrical, we’re proud to support the communities we work in. After all, the work we do supplying electrical lines across the country is, at its heart, a service to the people who live there. But every once in a while, we like to set a day apart as a Day of Service so that we can get our hands dirty for a nonprofit organization that directly serves our community.
August 24 was the team’s latest Day of Service, and it was a momentous event. Forty NRE employees, alongside the leadership team, volunteered throughout the day at the nonprofit’s Salem Distribution Hub to pack just under 2,000 emergency food boxes to be distributed to individuals facing hunger across Southwest Virginia.
“What a day it was,” said NRE’s Sr. Vice President of Finance, CFO, and Corporate Secretary Robert Arritt. “It was hard work on a hot day in August, but it was important work and we had a great time together, so much so, we finished the day planning for our next Day of Service.”
The work was an important team-building opportunity to give back for the NRE team, but for Feeding Southwest Virginia, the volunteer support from NRE is mission-critical.
“Volunteers help us take a burden off of Food Bank staff by helping us complete work that would otherwise be virtually undoable without their support,” said Feeding Southwest Virginia’s Director of Marketing and Communications Lisa Uhl.
“NRE’s contribution on their service days is absolutely vital to our efforts. In fact, at a recognized fair market labor value of around $28.46 per hour, New River Electrical volunteers saved us over $3,500 in labor costs for their efforts.”
Truck Sponsorship
Midway through the August 24 service day, Feeding Southwest Virginia revealed the latest design on their Mobile Marketplace Refrigerated Utility Trailer, which now sports the New River Electrical logo. The new 2021 truck is often used to travel to more rural areas in Southwest Virginia to bring groceries to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients that often struggle with access to fresh, local foods.
“We couldn’t be more proud of all that we’ve accomplished together with Feeding Southwest Virginia and we’re looking forward to doing more in the future,” said Arritt. “We are so appreciative to all of our NRE employees who have prioritized serving others through this partnership.”
