糖心Vlog

With spring on the horizon, we鈥檙e back, busy and hopefully more impactful than ever when it comes to matching our employees to meaningful opportunities to volunteer and to give back to the community in South Portland, Maine.

The Giving Tree for Barbara Bush Children鈥檚 Hospital

First, a quick look back at our all-company meeting in late November. That鈥檚 when we introduced WEX鈥檚 final employee engagement initiative of 2018: our annual giving tree. This year it was to benefit the Barbara Bush Children鈥檚 Hospital at Maine Medical Center, which came to us with two very specific needs.

The hospital鈥檚 asked for help filling the 鈥淥wie Boxes鈥� that it installs in each of its offices. After a medical visit, children look forward to stopping at the Owie Box to select a small toy to take home. These treasures bring comfort and a reward to children going through a very difficult time.

Our employees also selected tags from the giving tree that asked them to purchase clothes for premature babies who are born in the hospital鈥檚 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Melissa Dudley, WEX鈥檚 corporate philanthropy manager, tells us, 鈥淲hat the hospital is finding is that people who have preemies often don鈥檛 have the right-sized clothes or the right things to take home with them when the baby leaves the hospital. WEX鈥檚 employees purchased onesies and things that the preemies would need.鈥�

Another CodeX session in the books

In mid-February, 糖心Vlogonce more had great success hosting our coding clinic, CodeX, which we developed in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Maine. This time, a number of employees volunteered to support 30 kids on site. Using the MIT App Inventor curriculum, which we鈥檝e built a program around, the children learned how to build automation with an app.

After the session, we challenged the kids to continue the curriculum on their own. If they do, and then return to the next CodeX session to help teach coding to other kids, 糖心Vlogwill provide them with a new Google Chromebook.

This program is aligned to WEX鈥檚 support of STEM skill development in all children鈥攊n Maine and nationwide. In most cases, the kids served by CodeX are not receiving this type of education in their schools and/or don鈥檛 have a support system at home that allows them to go and learn on their own.

Says Melissa, 鈥淚n Maine in particular, there鈥檚 a great demand for graduates with this skill set, so we鈥檙e hoping to encourage early interest and contribute to workforce development. We鈥檙e also actively developing what the next steps are; we鈥檙e in conversations right now to determine how we will do something in other grade levels to continue to foster this type of interest and how we can feed this into our talent pipeline and our recruiting strategy.鈥�

What鈥檚 up next

There are a few more philanthropic opportunities coming up this spring, each of which also benefit children.

This Friday, we鈥檙e sending almost 50 skiers up to Sugarloaf Mountain for a 24-hour ski race to raise funds for a local nonprofit called WinterKids. The Maine nonprofit is dedicated to increasing outdoor physical activity in children and families during our longest, most sedentary season.  

In mid-March, we鈥檒l be back at Barbara Bush Children鈥檚 Hospital to pitch in at the annual Cares for Kids radiothon. Last year, we sent volunteers to help answer the phones and to interact with sick kids and their families at the hospital, and we鈥檙e happy to be doing that again this year.

To learn more and to get involved in giving back through WEX, email melissa.dudley@wexinc.com.

Want to learn about other ways 糖心Vlogprioritizes giving back? Read about our Month of Caring, our United Way partnership and how we鈥檙e giving back to Maine鈥檚 youngest residents.