Category Archives: Charity

‘Tis the Season of Giving at L&P

At L&P, we believe in giving back to the communities where we live, work, and play, and we’re proud of our teams who consistently volunteer in and donate to their local communities throughout the year. We’d like to share a few stories from our teams who have given back to their local communities during this holiday season.

Internal Audit Volunteers for Salvation Army

The Internal Audit team recently participated in the Salvation Army Red Kettle at the Webb City Walmart.

The Red Kettle is a charitable initiative organized during the holiday season that supports the Salvation Army. With more than 7,000 operation centers across the United States, The Salvation Army assists people experiencing economic hardships and addiction by providing many services, such as emergency relief, shelter, and food, to those in need.

LFPF – Aurora Supports Wreaths Across America

The LFPF – Aurora Flooring Team in Aurora, Illinois, participated in Wreaths Across America Day on December 16. Wreaths Across America is a non-profit organization that honors and remembers the sacrifices of veterans by sponsoring and placing wreaths on Veterans’ graves across the country.

Aurora had 15 team members participate among over 100 volunteers despite the cold rain and wind. The organization had an overwhelming donation of wreaths and placed 600 wreaths across two cemeteries.

Corporate Credit Supports Sunshine Children’s Home

Our Corporate Credit team recently enjoyed a Christmas party complete with snacks, games, and a visit from Santa. They also adopted the residents at Sunshine Children’s Home in Carthage, MO. 

The Sunshine Children’s Home is a non-profit organization that originally supported children with intellectual disabilities. Today, the agency operates two residential homes and provides leisure activities, transportation, meal preparation, and personal hygiene services for adults with intellectual disabilities.

The team filled stockings from requests gathered from each resident and delivered them for a Christmas surprise. 

There’s nothing greater than the gift of giving, and we want to say thank you to all of our L&P teams for putting people first and doing great work together this holiday season!

Lending a Hand to The Salvation Army

Our Corporate Tax team volunteered to ring bells near Red Kettles — donation containers for The Salvation Army — at different locations across Carthage, Missouri.

With more than 7,000 operation centers across the United States, The Salvation Army assists people who are experiencing economic hardships and addiction by providing many services, such as emergency relief, shelter, and food, to those in need.

We are grateful to our Corporate Tax team for putting people first and doing great work together!

Supporting United Way in the NYSE’s Global Giving Campaign

L&P is proud to support the United Way in the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) Global Giving Campaign!

As a global company, we are committed to investing in the communities where we live and work, and the United Way shares our goals of advancing education, financial stability, and health around the world.

A commemorative ornament showing our support will hang on the holiday tree in front of the NYSE entrance until the end of the year. Check it out below!

LEG Global Giving Campaign Ornament 2023 Photo Credit: NYSE

L&P Employees Volunteer at Safe Harbor’s ReSource Warehouse

In November, several L&P employees from our Home Furniture, Flooring, and Hanes businesses came together to volunteer at Safe Harbor’s ReSource Warehouse in Hickory, North Carolina.

Safe Harbor is a nonprofit organization that provides programs and services to help meet the needs of women and their children. ReSource Warehouse — Safe Harbor’s thrift store — provides job experience to Safe Harbor program participants. All proceeds from the thrift store support Safe Harbor’s services, such as providing temporary or long-term housing and a one-year sobriety program.

Photos of our volunteers — Tanya Caine, Brandon Phothichack, Chris Bolich, Tammy Watts, Julia Powers, Breanna Wagster, Samantha Howell, and Samantha’s daughter, Alexandra Simmons — in action at Safe Harbor.

Our group of volunteers put our four L&P values — Put People First, Do the Right Thing, Do Great Work Together, and Take Ownership and Raise the Bar — into action when they met to make a positive impact on others’ lives. “We took pride in what we were doing for our community,” shared Samantha Howell, Vice President of Human Resources. “We swept, organized, cleaned, were creative, assisted shoppers, and encouraged workers. We embraced responsibility and made a difference.”

Our volunteers contributed more than 32 hours of work and also collected and made donations to Safe Harbor. While volunteering in the ReSource Warehouse, they styled mannequins and helped shoppers find items. They also offered encouraging words to adolescents doing community service and were inspired by the testimony of a Safe Harbor resident who will be sober at Thanksgiving with her children for the first time.

“We got to know each other a little better, help those in need, and proudly represent L&P,” continued Samantha. “We had a great time giving back to our community and look forward to our next volunteering adventure!”

We are grateful to our volunteers for lifting up their communities and living our L&P values!

L&P Employees Give Back: Watered Gardens

Last year, Tammy Trent, our Chief Accounting Officer, asked the Corporate Accounting and Accounts Payable teams to select local charities to join their quarterly meetings to share their missions and how they support the local community. One organization the team heard from was Watered Gardens — a nonprofit located in Joplin, Missouri, that serves the needs of individuals and families by providing shelter, food, and other services.

After learning about Watered Gardens, a group of our employees quickly formed to donate to and serve the nonprofit each month. Kim Hickey, Senior Business Analyst, volunteered to coordinate and create a sign-up schedule for preparing and serving dinner at the outreach center and donating food supplies or money for food.

“I enjoy being part of the volunteer team because serving dinner is a simple way to make an impact on the lives of people struggling in our community,” said Kim Hickey. “We are bringing them a tangible form of comfort and an encouraging smile. It’s also a great way to get to know the other volunteers.”

The group tends to look different each month, but there are many L&P employees who frequently sign up, including members from the Internal Audit and Accounts Payable teams. When it’s their time to volunteer, some employees bring family members with them.

We are grateful to our employees for giving back to their communities and doing great work together!

Our employees who regularly volunteer for Watered Gardens

How Giving Helps You

You know that giving benefits others, but did you know it’s also good for you?

When we donate, volunteer, or give gifts, we’re doing some good for others and ourselves. Here are three things we learned about the personal benefits of giving:

  • Giving helps your health. When we give, our brains release feel-good hormones, which make us feel happier. Giving can also lower blood pressure and cortisol levels, which are responsible for making us feel anxious or stressed.
  • Giving enhances positivity. When we are generous, our perception of others becomes more positive, causing us to feel closer and more connected to others. Giving can also increase gratitude and help us feel connected to a bigger picture beyond ourselves, which can help cultivate meaning in life.
  • Giving strengthens your circles. Generosity is contagious. When we give, we also inspire others — both near and far to us — to give. Since we’re all parts of multiple circles or communities, it’s no surprise that, when we invest in the places where we live, work, and play, we’re also investing in ourselves.

References

Brower, Tracy, PhD. “Giving Is Good—For Others, but Also for You.” Forbes, 28 Nov. 2021, www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2021/11/28/giving-is-good-for-others-but-also-for-you/?sh=7aa5caf623a1. Accessed 6 July 2023.

“Five Reasons to Give to Charity.” Charities Aid Foundation, www.cafonline.org/my-personal-giving/long-term-giving/resource-centre/five-reasons-to-give-to-charity. Accessed 6 July 2023.

Suttie, Jill, and Jason Marsh. “5 Ways Giving Is Good for You.” The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, 13 Dec. 2010, greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/5_ways_giving_is_good_for_you. Accessed 7 July 2023.

“Why Giving Is Good for Your Health.” Cleveland Clinic, 7 Dec. 2022, health.clevelandclinic.org/why-giving-is-good-for-your-health. Accessed 6 July 2023.

Giving Back Starts at Home: We Rise

Giving back starts at home with We Rise—an employee and company-funded program that has helped satisfy the emergency needs of L&P employees in the aftermath of catastrophic events and natural disasters since 2011.

We Rise exists due to the generosity of our people. In 2022, our employees donated more than $50,000 to aid 13 employees in rebuilding from flooding, hurricanes, and other disasters. L&P further supported those employees with donations of mattresses for impacted family members. This year, We Rise supported several employees after a tornado went through Tupelo, Mississippi.

We are inspired by and grateful to our employees for putting people first and doing great work together through We Rise!

How We Give Back

At L&P, we foster a culture of giving and are committed to investing in the communities where we live and work.

Since 2001, L&P has donated more than 10 million dollars to our communities and supported more than 350 organizations. With a core value of putting people first, we prioritize giving with three main goals:

  • Inspiring Our Future. We support programs that are inclusive and create pathways to a better future through education, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs; scholarship programs; technical vocational; college access and career-readiness programs; and community-based arts and music programming.
  • Elevating Our Communities. We give to organizations that strengthen the fabric of our communities, preserve and protect resources, and aid those facing financial hardship and instability, including programs that address homelessness and hunger, support economic mobility, and protect victims of violence.
  • Helping Communities in Crisis. We seek to assist in disaster relief and humanitarian work around the world with financial or in-kind contributions to those in need.

We also see our employees frequently giving their own time and resources to address local needs and build a brighter future for neighborhoods around the world.

Throughout August, we’ll continue to highlight how we give back to our communities. Stay tuned!

Hanes Team Supports Local Habitat for Humanity

Team members from Hanes Industries in Conover, North Carolina, spent their Earth Day giving back to the local community by volunteering for Catawba Valley Habitat for Humanity.

The mission of Habitat Catawba Valley is to help homebuyers build a safe and affordable place to call home. The need for Habitat for Humanity in local communities is greater than ever. The current real estate market makes homeownership difficult for many, especially those whose income falls below the area’s median.

Team Members from Hanes Industries – Conover, Catawba Habitat for Humanity, and the future homeowners.

“Our goal is to put hardworking families into a home, breaking the cycle of renting and unlocking a new type of generational wealth through homeownership,” says Phillip Stepp, Digital Marketing Manager for Catawba Valley Habitat for Humanity. “We achieve this with help from the local community through monetary donations, donations of items to ReStore (a retail store that sells gently used furniture and home accessories), and the hard work from our volunteers and homebuyers.”

The Hanes volunteers visited a neighborhood that is getting a much-needed makeover and assisted in the construction of two different home projects. The team even had the opportunity to work alongside the future homeowners and share their personal stories.

“I volunteered because I understand how it feels to need a helping hand,” says Brandon Phothichack, a team member from Hanes. “I’ve struggled, and I’ve known people who have struggled, and I’ve worked with people who were in the program at Habitat and have succeeded in achieving their dreams of owning.”

Thank you to our Hanes team for giving back to their community and living out our values of putting people first and doing great work together!

L&P Supports United Way in the NYSE’s Global Giving Campaign

L&P is honored to support the United Way in the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) Global Giving Campaign!

As a global manufacturer, Leggett & Platt is committed to investing in the communities where we live and work. The United Way shares our goals of advancing education, financial stability, and health around the world. We proudly support those initiatives, with corporate gifts multiplying our employees’ long-standing generosity to the organization.

A commemorative ornament will hang on the holiday tree in front of the NYSE entrance until the end of the year. Check it out below!

LEG Global Giving Campaign Ornament 2022 Photo Credit: NYSE