This story of charitable work begins with a holiday card.

Ever since risk and insurance solutions agency KMRD Partners was started ten years ago, we would send holiday cards signed by every member of the agency’s three offices in Pennsylvania to friends every holiday season.

Two years ago, KMRD Co-Founder Bob Dietzel and I decided we wanted to get closer to the true spirit of the season. Instead of sending holiday wishes in envelopes, we wanted to deliver holiday gifts to families in need.

And we didn’t have to look far in our search for partners to fulfill our holiday wish.

We decided to help the families who turn to Keystone Opportunity Center in Souderton, Pa., for aid. Keystone has a strong reputation for housing the homeless in Upper Bucks and Montgomery Counties in Pennsylvania, and operates a food pantry serving hundreds of neighbors from across the Souderton Area School District. We partnered with our client Leidy’s Simply Delicious Pork, a maker of pork products that has been in business for more than 100 years, to help feed the families in need at Keystone.

For the past two years, Leidy’s has been preparing 36 eight-pound spiral hams per week to be sent to Keystone. The hams are delivered to Keystone by KMRD employees for six weeks, starting at the beginning of November, so families can have a centerpiece for their holiday meals. This has amounted to 2,000 pounds of ham – enough to feed 250 families through the holiday season.

We are proud to be associated with Keystone Opportunity Center. As a member of this community, KMRD feels a responsibility and desire to support others both financially and personally. We are also grateful to Leidy’s for partnering with us on this program for the past two years, setting an example for organizations to mark the holiday season in a meaningful way.

This holiday wish fulfillment initiative was the second of two KMRD Partners events this past fall.

KMRD participated in a Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) event held at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pa., during the last week of October. FMSC sends volunteer-packed meals to more than 70 countries where they are used by orphanages, schools, clinics, and feeding programs to help break the cycle of poverty. The Minnesota-based charity spends 92% of total donations directly on feeding the hungry and has earned the highest four-star rating from Charity Navigator for nine consecutive years.

I was privileged as volunteer event coordinator to lead a team of more than 1,000 volunteers from ages 8 to 80 at the second annual FMSC MobilePack event, where meals are packaged for needy families.

Our team packed 272,160 meals that included 11,000 pounds of rice; 8,400 pounds of soy; and many bags of vitamins and vegetables. These meals were then sent to Sierra Leone and Liberia to support communities ravaged by the Ebola virus. Those meals will keep 745 people alive for an entire year.

To top it off, that day our volunteers brought approximately 1,200 pounds of food for local food pantry restocking.

We also decided to add some competitive fun to the event by including a corporate challenge that was accepted by local Pennsylvania firms Contract Pharmacy Services, NFP, Laboratory Testing Inc., and The Kennedy Family of Dealerships.

We hope our actions propel other businesses to get involved locally to do something good for someone in need. Company programs combining financial support with volunteer efforts boost morale and camaraderie. We believe doing good as a company is good for your company.

Special Reports /

KMRD Partners donates meals to local communities and Ebola-stricken nations

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