Making a difference – the SDG way
Written by
At SDG, giving back is a big part of who we are. Through our SDG Gives committee, we’re finding ways to get involved in our communities and support causes that matter to us—because doing good together feels great.
The committee is dedicated to creating opportunities for employees to engage in community service and providing guidelines for donation request and cause-related marketing. Since there are so many worthy causes to support, we polled our employees and zeroed in on a couple of broader areas that everyone could get behind – education and hunger/food insecurity.
Education support
Let’s talk education first. We’ve been busy! Through our annual Backpack Drive last August we delivered 190 backpacks filled with essential school supplies to the Kids in Need Foundation (KINF). In addition, we helped stock KINF’s Teacher Resource Center, which provides eligible teachers with supplies for their classrooms and under-resourced students, ensuring they have the tools they need to create an equitable and inspiring learning environment.
Taking on food insecurity
On the hunger front, we showed up big for Give to the Max Day last November. Our team raised over $6,800 for Second Harvest Heartland—and with matching donations, that turned into more than $27,000! This funding will help provide over 82,000 meals, bringing much-needed relief to those facing food insecurity. Incredible.
And we didn’t stop there! 16 SDG volunteers rolled up their sleeves and packed 420 bags of potatoes – that translates into 13,500+ meals for families in the community. And, in March, we sponsored a Food Drive to support the Marketplace Food Shelf, furthering our efforts to combat hunger in our communities.
Looking ahead, our Gives committee is excited to keep the momentum going by exploring options with organizations like Every Meal and The Food Group, which could expand the opportunities for SDG employees to make a positive impact.
Beyond the core
While education and hunger are our main focus, we’ve also added opportunities to support causes like homelessness and environmental initiatives.
The Gives committee joined forces with our DEI committee to put together a couple of different initiatives. Last fall they organized a blanket drive at Wildflyer coffee to collect blankets for Bridging. Both Wildflyer and Bridging are dedicated to providing housing stability to those in need, and more specifically, ending youth homelessness. The drive was a great success and we collected 125 blankets. Then, this past spring, we also got involved with Habitat for Humanity for the first time. The committees brought together a group of volunteers that got busy building homes right here in the Twin Cities.
We also recently partnered with Fill it Forward an organization whose mission is to inspire the world to reuse. Each of their reusable water bottles comes with a QR code. By scanning that QR code every time you fill up your bottle, you are helping to fund clean water, food, and reforestation efforts around the world. Fill it Forward has already raised nearly $2 million for their partners—including Second Harvest Heartland!
This is SDG
At the end of the day, this is what SDG is all about—people coming together to make things better. Whether it’s a backpack, a bag of potatoes, or a reusable water bottle, every action adds up.
We’re proud of our people. We’re proud of our impact. And we’re just getting started.