CLEVELAND, December 16, 2022—It only takes one: one good idea, one person, acting with purpose. One single pebble to send ripples spreading across an otherwise tranquil pond.
For Parker Hannifin’s Europe Shared Service Centre (ESSC) based in Wroclaw, Poland, that one is Marta Wierzbicka-Zagórna, Accounting Team Leader. Back in 2014, Marta was personally involved with the Noble Gift, one of the largest social programs in Poland, where donors and volunteers provide essential household items to families in need for Christmas.
“Our center had just opened and I was doing the Noble Gift in my private life, out of my home, when I realized we could be doing this with our whole team,” says Marta. “Our HR manager loved the idea, suggested we start a charity team and it grew from there.”
From the Christmas box to baked goods and book fairs, the ripples of her work began to spread near and far. More people started to get involved and as that happened, the ideas and the outreach continued to expand.
“I call it ‘thinking by heart’ - it starts with the feeling that you need to help someone else. So many people want to help but they don’t know where to start or what do to. They don’t want to direct the action, but if you can give them direction, they will absolutely follow through,” she explains.
And many have. Today, the charity workers have grown into a High Performance Team with twelve members who organize donations and events in which the whole facility of 300 can participate. One particular boon to their efforts has been the Parker Flex Platform, which enables Parker team members to donate individual company benefits’ points not only for personal benefits like gym memberships, life insurance and cinema tickets but also for charity, while the company matches these gifts with a monetary donation.
The beneficiaries thus far have primarily been families and children in Poland who have found themselves in difficult financial situations. But the initiative has expanded in scope and scale to provide support for children with disabilities, team members’ families, hospice facilities and animal shelters. To date, the team’s activities include:
- Noble Gift Christmas presents
- Bake sales and book fairs
- Donations and goods collection (food, clothes, cleaning products, hygiene products, home equipment, etc.)
- Volunteerism (such as Children Day or St. Nikolas Days for kids from Wroclaw Children Hospice, house renovation for Child Care Home in Wrocław)
- Transfer of IT equipment to students learning virtually during the pandemic
- Support for Ukraine (donation of critical goods, financial contributions, volunteering at the train station) and redistribution of Parker Foundation funds.
In the years since Parker introduced its Purpose statement in 2019, Marta reports that the movement has continued to gain momentum. She calls it the power of many. “Every single person who wants to have an impact can,” she says. “Everyone can bring a book, or bake a cake, or volunteer to spend time with an elderly person. This is the power that we’re harnessing with this program. And we are acting with the big support of our company.”
It’s also the power of purpose. At Parker, we believe that real change begins with a commitment to positively impact the communities we call home and it only takes one idea, one commitment, to get started.
About Parker
Parker Hannifin is a Fortune 250 global leader in motion and control technologies. For more than a century the company has been enabling engineering breakthroughs that lead to a better tomorrow. Learn more at www.parker.com or @parkerhannifin.
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