VISTA and CompHealth employees break the Utah Food Bank’s record for pounds of food gathered per employee
The last can of beans has been purchased, the donation barrels have been collected, the scales are in motion…and the winner of the VISTA/CompHealth Food Fight to End Hunger is…
We’ll get to that in just a minute. First I want to tell you what a great experience this friendly competition was for everyone involved. The Utah Food Bank picked up barrel after of barrel of food from both CompHealth and VISTA Staffing Solutions offices on the last day of June.
On Thursday, July 2, teams of employees from the locum tenens and physician staffing divisions of each company met at the Food Bank for a last round in this friendly competition. Ten employees from each company squared off in a 30-minute food sorting competition. We sorted food into boxes for state-wide distribution, under very strict rules for the final weight and labeling requirements for each box. The boxes were stacked on pallets. When the 30-minute timer sounded, staffers from the Food Bank hauled the pallets to the scales to see which team sorted the most food in 30 minutes.
They came back grinning. No one in Food Bank history had ever seen a competition so close. CompHealth employees sorted 1414 pounds of food. VISTA employees sorted 1412 pounds of food.
But our disappointment didn’t last long. Jim Pugh, Food Bank Executive Director, announced the winner of the month-long food gathering competition. (Keep in mind that this was a pounds-per-person competition.) Here are the totals:
CompHealth: 9170 pounds of food/663 employees = 13.8 pounds of food per employee
VISTA: 3462 pounds of food/189 employees = 18.3 pounds of food per employee
We lost a battle but won the war!
The best news is that together both companies gathered 12,632 pounds of food. The Utah Food Bank tells us it’s a per-person record for a company food drive—14.8 pounds per employee of the combined companies.
And if you consider that 1.28 pounds equals a meal, that’s 9869 meals—enough to feed a family of four for 822 days or 2.25 years. Wow!
The other best news is that David Baldridge president, CompHealth Locum Tenens Division, will be wearing VISTA-logoed clothing at the next annual meeting of the National Association of Locum Tenens Organizations. We’re working on your ensemble now Dave. You’re going to look great.
