Over the last decade we have been able to work with hundreds of corporations to host team building activities that give back to the community. These team building events ultimately involve corporate employees coming together to pack cheer-up gift boxes or bags (Cheeriodicals) that are delivered to local children’s hospitals, Veterans hospitals, Ronald McDonald House residents or other charities. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we even extended our events to lead teams to pack Cheeriodicals for delivery to frontline hospital workers to thank them for their support during the pandemic.
In the past 10+ years we have utilized team building activities to impact those in need and our events with Labcorp have delivered some of the best memories of all. Those memories go back to our very first team building event with Labcorp where their team packed Cheeriodicals to deliver to the pediatric patients at UNC Children’s Hospital. Their team of 100+ colleagues packed more than 150 Cheeriodicals, one for every pediatric patient at the hospital in Chapel Hill.
The impact of that first Labcorp team building event represents the true essence of our team building “that matters” concept.
Since the years that followed the 2016 Labcorp delivery to UNC Children’s, we have had the opportunity to work with Labcorp several times, delivering a broad range of smiles along the way, always to pediatric patients in need. In 2018, a team from Labcorp came together to pack Cheeriodicals for children at Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center and Halifax Health Medical Center. We’ll always remember how much fun it was to work with this large team to do the team building project, packing the cheer-up boxes. You can see that team full of smiles in the team building photo:
In 2019, another Labcorp team packed Cheeriodicals for delivery to children at Atlanticare Pediatrics in Atlantic City, NJ and Shriners Children’s Philadelphia. A smaller group of that larger team personally delivered the Cheeriodicals to the recipient hospitals and those personal deliveries were just amazing. The photos from the delivery at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia were unforgettable to say the least.
Earlier in August of this year, we led a large team of approximately 250 Labcorp colleagues to pack Cheeriodicals for delivery to Yale University Children’s Hospital. It was incredible to see their team proudly holding up their Cheeriodicals boxes upon completion of the team building activity. This team was full of Type A personalities and let’s just say this group was focused and ready to make it happen for the kids at the hospital.
Every child at the hospital received a Cheeriodicals box and the impact was remarkable. It was our first delivery to this hospital in a few years and the Yale Children’s team was so appreciative of the donation and delivery. We worked within the current COVID-19 guidelines and dropped off the delivery just outside the front entrance where the hospital Child Life Team was eagerly waiting to collect the donation. The Child Life Team loaded all the Cheeriodicals boxes and then delivered them individually to the kids room by room until all boxes were distributed.
Most importantly, the kids who received these incredible cheer-up boxes were the ones who really smiled. The feedback was phenomenal from the staff, families and especially the kids. Nothing is better than seeing that impact in the terms of a smile like this one.
We are so thankful for our partnership with Labcorp going back 6 years to utilize corporate socially responsible (CSR) team building to not only have fun as a team, but more importantly, to deliver a needed dose of cheer to hospitalized children searching for a reason to smile.