Great Falls, Mont. - How much happiness can $73 buy? How much good can be done on the fly, with little time to plan and only a few hours to implement? The staff of Montana Federal Credit Union spent Monday afternoon doing their best to find out.
Veterans Day is usually a day off for the financial industry, but instead of spending it at home, employees at Montana Federal Credit Union were asked to participate in a daylong seminar on leadership and community building.
Halfway through the class, organizers sprang a surprise on the staff. Good intentions are meaningless without follow-through, and there was little point in conducting a class on community involvement if no good works were accomplished.
So with no forewarning and only a few minutes to plan a strategy, nine groups of credit union employees were launched into Great Falls to make as big a difference as they could. Each group of six to eight people was given $73.
"The two-hour time constraint and a $73 budget is kind of a stickler, so it needs to be something like a pay-it-forward concept," said Becky Timmons, vice president of Marketing for Montana Federal Credit Union and an organizer of the event. "Basically, they have to use the money to make somebodys day a little bit brighter."
The idea for an afternoon of "random acts of kindness" was borrowed from a previous project hosted by Leadership Great Falls, a two-year program offered by the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce to foster greater and more effective community participation. The project was designed to emphasize inclusion and egalitarianism, with each participant encouraged to contribute their ideas, knowledge and skills equally, and without regard to seniority in the workplace.
The odd amount of $73 to work with was selected in recognition of the 73rd anniversary of the Montana Federal Credit Union. In addition to the cash, each group was assigned to a distinct and exclusive area of Great Falls neighborhoods. All the money had to be spent at businesses in that area, and the acts of kindness could only take place within that areas borders.
Coming up with quick and impactful ways to spread the wealth was perhaps the hardest task of the project. Sent to the neighborhoods on Great Falls eastern border, group nine split its efforts between buying winter clothing for the Student in Need program at Lewis and Clark Elementary School, and paying for drive-thru customers coffee at the Schultes Coffee House on 38th Street.
Explaining the mission they were assigned to, credit union employees Kevin Hollingworth, Jim Aceto and Martha Kennedy persuaded the management at Western Ranch Supply to donate a childs winter coat. The generosity of the 10th Avenue South business enabled the groups other members to buy three sets of winter hats and gloves from Schultes.
At the coffee shop drive-thru, customers responded with surprised grins and exclamations of disbelief as Amy Hodges, Jen OBoyle and Jackie Hjelm picked up the tab for their orders. When it was finished, the group had enough left over to trek down to the Veteran of Foreign Wars post and buy everyone a soda or a cup of coffee.
"Im really excited," Hodges remarked as another surprised customer drove away. "Personality wise, Im not one to just drop everything and do this type of thing, but this is really fun."
In total, the nine credit union groups distributed $657 in donations over the course of an afternoon a small amount when compared with the $111,550 Montana Federal Credit Union has given to community events and organizations over the past two years. But it is the hope of event organizers that the measure of the moneys impact will extend well beyond the small budget they had to work with.
"The take-away for these groups is that this is something that they think about in their day to day interactions with our members; not just a flash-in-the-pan, onetime thing and tomorrow well go back to our day-to-day lives," Timmons said. "I think it forces people to go outside of their comfort zone and think outside of the box. Its a strategic thinking tactic that hopefully they can take back and utilize in the workplace."
Great Falls, Mont. - How much happiness can $73 buy? How much good can be done on the fly, with little time to plan and only a few hours to implement? The staff of Montana Federal Credit Union spent Monday afternoon doing their best to find out.
Veterans Day is usually a day off for the financial industry, but instead of spending it at home, employees at Montana Federal Credit Union were asked to participate in a daylong seminar on leadership and community building.
Halfway through the class, organizers sprang a surprise on the staff. Good intentions are meaningless without follow-through, and there was little point in conducting a class on community involvement if no good works were accomplished.
So with no forewarning and only a few minutes to plan a strategy, nine groups of credit union employees were launched into Great Falls to make as big a difference as they could. Each group of six to eight people was given $73.
"The two-hour time constraint and a $73 budget is kind of a stickler, so it needs to be something like a pay-it-forward concept," said Becky Timmons, vice president of Marketing for Montana Federal Credit Union and an organizer of the event. "Basically, they have to use the money to make somebodys day a little bit brighter."
The idea for an afternoon of "random acts of kindness" was borrowed from a previous project hosted by Leadership Great Falls, a two-year program offered by the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce to foster greater and more effective community participation. The project was designed to emphasize inclusion and egalitarianism, with each participant encouraged to contribute their ideas, knowledge and skills equally, and without regard to seniority in the workplace.
The odd amount of $73 to work with was selected in recognition of the 73rd anniversary of the Montana Federal Credit Union. In addition to the cash, each group was assigned to a distinct and exclusive area of Great Falls neighborhoods. All the money had to be spent at businesses in that area, and the acts of kindness could only take place within that areas borders.
Coming up with quick and impactful ways to spread the wealth was perhaps the hardest task of the project. Sent to the neighborhoods on Great Falls eastern border, group nine split its efforts between buying winter clothing for the Student in Need program at Lewis and Clark Elementary School, and paying for drive-thru customers coffee at the Schultes Coffee House on 38th Street.
Explaining the mission they were assigned to, credit union employees Kevin Hollingworth, Jim Aceto and Martha Kennedy persuaded the management at Western Ranch Supply to donate a childs winter coat. The generosity of the 10th Avenue South business enabled the groups other members to buy three sets of winter hats and gloves from Schultes.
At the coffee shop drive-thru, customers responded with surprised grins and exclamations of disbelief as Amy Hodges, Jen OBoyle and Jackie Hjelm picked up the tab for their orders. When it was finished, the group had enough left over to trek down to the Veteran of Foreign Wars post and buy everyone a soda or a cup of coffee.
"Im really excited," Hodges remarked as another surprised customer drove away. "Personality wise, Im not one to just drop everything and do this type of thing, but this is really fun."
In total, the nine credit union groups distributed $657 in donations over the course of an afternoon a small amount when compared with the $111,550 Montana Federal Credit Union has given to community events and organizations over the past two years. But it is the hope of event organizers that the measure of the moneys impact will extend well beyond the small budget they had to work with.
"The take-away for these groups is that this is something that they think about in their day to day interactions with our members; not just a flash-in-the-pan, onetime thing and tomorrow well go back to our day-to-day lives," Timmons said. "I think it forces people to go outside of their comfort zone and think outside of the box. Its a strategic thinking tactic that hopefully they can take back and utilize in the workplace."