LATEST SUBMISSIONS

Corporations, businesses not all about the money

Thursday, August 23 at 12:00 AM

This Speakout has not been edited.

By Dianna Kunz

These days we seem inundated with stories concerning corporate greed and injustice. The recent Joe Nacchio trial might lead one to believe that the good guys are in hiding.
At Volunteers of America, we have a different perspective of the corporate world. Our faith-based nonprofit serves Colorado’s most vulnerable populations in every demographic — preschoolers from limited-income families, homebound seniors relying on Social Security, young mothers attempting to complete GED programs, and the chronically homeless. Without the generosity of Colorado’s business community, we would be unable to provide the basic services that often lead to independence and success for those we serve.
In the past few weeks, Volunteers of America has seen some amazing acts of compassion and generosity coming from Colorado’s for-profit organizations. The Denver Doubletree Hotel recently donated hundreds of sheets, towels and hygiene kits to the VOA Family Motel, a short-term emergency shelter on Colfax Avenue. Pinnacol Assurance delivered 75 birthday boxes to the Volunteers of America Brandon Center, Colorado’s largest shelter for homeless and battered women and their children.
Residents whose birthdays fall sometime during their stay at the center are given a ray of sunshine with new clothes, games or toys.
These acts of corporate kindness truly make a difference throughoutin the lives of individuals in crisis. Frontier Airlines supplies each Meals on Wheels recipient with an emergency “blizzard box” in case the weather makes delivery impossible. Kroenke Sports Enterprises delivers meals on wheels to homebound elderly while the Integer Marketing Group has an entire team helping us with our public relations and marketing efforts.
If you think law firms don’t care, let me point out that over the last 20 years Holme Roberts & Owen provided and assembled more than 25,000 Thanksgiving baskets while Brownstein Hyatt Farber Shreck delivered fans to hundreds of elderly this spring right before the current heat wave.
Metro Brokers, Coors, CBS Outdoor, Deloitte Touche, Safeway and Wells Fargo are just a few more businesses that are donating their time and resources to live out their corporate philosophy of giving back to the community.
Financial and in-kind donations are crucial to what we do but the enormous volunteer commitment on behalf of corporate employees is always humbling. I apologize for all of the businesses I have omitted and I know there are many. I just feel compelled to let people know that a few bad apples do not represent the corporate culture in this community.

Dianna Kunz is the president and CEO of the Colorado branch of Volunteers of America.

READER COMMENTS

This is all well and good but lets look at employee treatment. If the boards of directors, CEO's, presidents, and V.P.s would take a substantial pay cut to a salary that more closely reflects reality and put the difference back into the companies in company improvements, employee pay, and/or employee benefits.

If you compare the Great Depression with what we see in the market place and work place today you will find no difference. The only thing that is missing is the stock market crash and that has happened yet because it is kept afloat by the Federal Reserve and other straw-man tools and by the fact that economists won't admit to even a recession to prevent the possibility of wide spread panic. If the economists were to really admit the true state of our economy then it could act as a catalyst for a type of self fulfilling prophecy.

Posted by Harry on August 28, 2007 02:41 PM