Going into our 40th anniversary in business, we knew we had to celebrate in a big way. And our Give 40 week was pretty epic. August 5-9, our office was closed for regular business while we spent 40 hours each volunteering with different organizations throughout the Twin Cities. Here’s a quick recap:

Monday: Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity put us to work building a beautiful new home for a well-deserving family. We even had the pleasure of working side-by-side with two of those family members. Our takeaway: hard hats serve a purpose and measure twice, cut once.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Divide and conquer! While most of our team brainstormed a kick ass national campaign for MATTER, a small crew was over at the new Way to Grow office painting a bright, kid-friendly mural in their family room. Our takeaway: sometimes, time constraints lead to incredible work and drop cloths are important.

Thursday: We hopped over to the Catholic Charities warehouse in Saint Paul to help with a variety of tasks from sorting donated goods to preparing and packaging food. Our takeaway: when it comes to making a huge impact, there’s no task too small (like packing 6,000 snack bags of craisins and pistachios, for example).

Friday: We enjoyed a beautiful day outside with Friends of the Mississippi. We divided up in teams and canvased streets in Saint Paul’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood to pick up trash and stencil storm drains with reminders about keeping litter out of our waterways. Our takeaway: doing city-sanctioned graffiti is fun and hey, don’t litter!

Part of our ongoing Give 40 commitment involves getting other organizations to join us. After all, more people adds up to even more good. Quick to raise their hands was Sunrise Banks. If you haven’t heard of them, listen up. Sunrise is a socially responsible community bank and certified B Corp. With a strong commitment to doing good, Sunrise Banks already offers employees 40 hours of volunteer time each year. They joined Give 40 to raise awareness with other Minnesota companies that volunteer time is not only a huge benefit to employees, but that together we can make our state even stronger.

Our final takeaway: Giving 40 hours of our time gave us so much in return. We look forward to Give 40 2020, and we can’t wait to see what other companies will join our efforts!