Mimecast’s Global Community Resilience Month

Mimecast’s Global Community Resilience Month is a campaign in which I’m personally excited to participate. We kicked of this month of giving last year to engage and empower our employees to support communities and causes about which they are passionate. Last year, we contributed 400 hours globally in the month of July, and I am beyond proud to share that this past July, we contributed over 600 hours worldwide.

My team and I coordinated with our partners abroad to provide activities that would resonate with Mimecast volunteers. For example, in South Africa, we sponsored children to our office that attended The Tomorrow Trust where they spent the day rotating with our volunteers doing various activities focusing on STEM. We also cooked breakfast to provide support to families undergoing treatment for seriously ill children with the Ronald McDonald Foundation in Sydney Australia. These are just two examples of what we were able to accomplish during the campaign this July.

On a personal note, this year is the third year I participated with our Boston-based team in the Annual Boston Children's Hospital Corporate Cup. This fundraiser shows off the power of teamwork and competition. We ranked #2 among over 50 companies and helped raise a meaningful $1 million in donations. There’s nothing that compares to the adrenaline of being back on a field competing with colleagues, all working together to shoot the most shots in the goal, or spike that ball before the last second. The laughs, the memories, and the inside jokes are truly what keep me coming back year after year. 

While this was truly a fun experience, the one memory that resonates most with me is hearing Kate say she liked our mac n’ cheese. During this year’s campaign, we also partnered with Boston Childrens Hospital to host a lunch for patients and families receiving treatment at their family center.  Kate* is a 5-year-old girl who had had surgery the previous day. When she and her mom came down, she expressed how grateful she was, and she hoped her daughter would eat yet didn’t have much faith as Kate had spent most of the morning sleeping. Kate came in, grabbed her plate, and walked over to the mac n’ cheese the team had cooked. She looked at it, served herself, and went back to a table. I walked over and asked her if she liked it as she stuck a spoonful in her mouth and just nodded her head up and down. SpongeBob-themed mac n’ cheese quickly became my favorite food. 

It's those little moments that highlight how impactful days of giving can be. Mimecast’s Social Impact Team, my team, creates those moments that make a difference. Global Community Resilience Month is one of many initiatives that I’ve had the privilege of running. Our philanthropic programming, our diversity work with our ERGS, and our planned employee experiences create impact that transcends our employees, and I’m excited to see what else we will continue to accomplish!

*Name of the child has been changed to preserve privacy.