4th post in a series on our journey to create ARAMARK Building Community, the company’s signature community initiative to strength the capacity of the country’s local community centers.

With the "green light" to move forward, it was time to pilot ARAMARK Building Community, our new, branded signature initiative focused on strengthening the capacity of local community centers.  We chose several of our most important business markets – Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia - to demonstrate the power of the concept and to test different program models.  

Holly Montalbano, ARAMARK Vice President of External Affairs in Houston, quickly identified a local community center partner for the first local pilot partnership. "From our first meeting with Neighborhood Centers, Inc. (NCI), we were hopeful that we had found the perfect partner," says Montalbano.  A network of 59 community centers serving more than 200,000 people of all ages, NCI provided the types of services that ARAMARK could contribute to, but more importantly, was committed to forming mutually beneficial public-private partnerships to help those who need it most. 

The ARAMARK team wanted to make it clear that, while we were coming to the table with certain assets and resources, we had no set agenda of what the program would look like. "Our first priority was to understand NCI's needs, particularly in our focus areas – workforce readiness, basic human services and health and wellness – to identify some opportunities for collaboration in our first year," says Montalbano, "The folks at NCI were very willing to jump in with us and figure out together how we would combine forces for the community."

"As we began to learn more about ARAMARK, meet the company's leaders, and understand their ethic of excellence with employees and customers, we were increasingly impressed," says Angela Blanchard, president and CEO of NCI.  "Everything we learned made us want to partner with them as they developed their community engagement strategy.  We realized this was a perfect example of strategic value alignment."

Together, ARAMARK and NCI developed a detailed plan of activities we would do together in the first year, with clearly defined responsibilities and expectations for both partners.  Focusing on the areas in which the center's needs were met by ARAMARK's strengths in nutrition and wellness, workforce readiness, and basic services and facilities management, we decided to start with smaller events and build to more ambitious projects over time. 

We began by producing Ready2Act, a career fair for teens, which also provided the first opportunity for the company's various business units to take part in a community event together.  In addition to working with the center to set up the entire event, ARAMARK created an "ARAMARK Building Community Career Education Zone" in which employees conducted demonstrations of the variety of jobs in the hospitality industry, facilitated workshops, and introduced the ARAMARK Careers in Training (ACT) internship program.

The second project with NCI provided an opportunity for ARAMARK to leverage its expertise and connections to impact community health.  A "Health Information Planning Party" was held at the Harbach-Ripley Neighborhood Center with a goal of providing family-friendly health screenings and information in a useful and entertaining way. As a lead sponsor of the event, ARAMARK Building Community provided funding, in-kind donations and volunteer support that utilized employee expertise within its "ARAMARK Building Community Eat Smart Zone." ARAMARK's registered dietitians and chefs conducted nutrition workshops, healthy cooking demonstrations, and taste tests, and the ARAMARK Healthcare group provided a healthy lunch for all 500 attendees.

With two successful projects completed and plans for future collaborations underway, we took another big step and tested a massive, one-day facilities restoration of the Harbach-Ripley Neighborhood Center's facilities.   In a single November day, nearly 200 employees with the support of City Year Care Force tore down an old chain-link fence and crumbling storage shed; built an outdoor classroom; restored a baseball field; repainted a basketball court; landscaped the grounds and planted gardens; and painted the exterior of the building, including two murals. 

The results were "nothing short of remarkable," in NCI Director Blanchard's words.  "A greater sense of pride resonates from the neighborhood whenever the front door swings open to their beautifully ‘made-over' community center."  One senior client told her, "How wonderful not to be forgotten.  It's like our neighborhood has been found again."

ARAMARK employees were similarly inspired.  Post-event surveys were filled with positive feedback, like this comment from an employee:  "Yesterday was probably one of my best days at ARAMARK. I enjoy working at ARAMARK and everything that we do, but yesterday made me realize why I do work for this company."

Buoyed by the success in Houston, we began piloting similar ARAMARK Building Community partnerships in Chicago with the Jane Adams Hull House Association, and in ARAMARK's headquarters city with the Federation of Neighborhood Centers.

Through the pilot process we gained some important learnings that would help to make a national rollout stronger. 

One such lesson was that each local relationship is unique, and takes time to develop.  Just because something worked well in Houston did not guarantee that it would work the same way in Chicago or Philadelphia.  We recognized that, in order to best respond to our community center partners' needs, ARAMARK Building Community would need to allow flexibility in each market.  Although programmatic activities might look different in each community, the underlying mission would unite ARAMARK employees across business units and around the globe.

By the end of the pilot stage, it was clear that consistent activities throughout the company would include workforce readiness events like Career Fairs, health and wellness events, community center enhancement projects, and basic needs drives for food, clothing, toys, and other necessary items.  These specific efforts, tailored to the local needs and capabilities, serve the community centers' constituents and utilized ARAMARK's greatest strengths and resources.

From each pilot location, positive word-of-mouth spread throughout the company.  Across the company ARAMARK employees, from executives to hourly workers, were inspired, and eager to participate.  We were almost ready to launch nationally.

Bev Dribin is the Vice President Community Relations for ARAMARK