December 18, 2012
PART II: On other methods of participation, volunteerism, and final words
I spoke with Howard Klein, president and owner of Lanmark360, about how women participated in a male-oriented challenge, future volunteer opportunities, and final words on the campaign’s success.
I saw on your Facebook page that one of the female employees at Lanmark360 participated by not coloring her hair until the money was raised. How did other women of Lanmark participate?
One of our employees didn’t shave her right leg for some time. That lasted throughout the first 10 or 12 days of the campaign. I don’t remember when it was that she had to give up. Her significant other gave her an impression that she had to shave before we met the goal. She might have even held out until we met our goal of $10,000, ‘cause that did come quickly, but not the $20,000. She didn’t commit to both legs, but she did commit to the right leg.
Printers that we worked with printed fliers at no charge, and our employees distributed them to local businesses. We had lawn signs on busy highways and neighborhoods and areas that were affected most. One of our print vendors created magnets and our friends and employees were displaying the magnets on their cars, reminding people to donate and driving them to the site. There were definitely reports of a lot of women outside of the company that weren’t shaving – we heard stories on Facebook. A lot of women were claiming that they weren’t shaving their legs but they couldn’t document because we met the goal before their legs could get to the point were you could see it.
The other thing that was neat was that on the site itself we gave instructions on sending checks in. We expected most donations to come online, but we also wanted to give another option for those that weren’t comfortable with donating online. We got checks from people we didn’t know, which made it meaningful because they didn’t donate because they knew us, they just wanted to support the cause.
Did the Shave the Shore campaign inspire any offshoots, like other campaigns or an increase in volunteerism?
Lanmark is all about giving back and doing what we can to help in the community where our business is and where we live, as well as within the industry. We work with a lot of different professional associations like the ADHA, Give Kids a Smile, The National Museum of Dentistry – we always did what we could. But this definitely has gotten more employees interested in helping throughout the next year, and as we’re getting closer to 2013 we’re going to be looking at ways that we can use the campaign as a foundation to continue to help those who’ve been affected by Hurricane Sandy because there’s still work to be done. Most of our pro bono work for next year is going to go towards those who were affected by Sandy.
We are beginning to do some work to support the Coastal Habitat for Humanity, dedicated to helping people rebuild homes in the Jersey Shore branch. They’ve earmarked certain funds and activities to help families that have been affected by Hurricane Sandy so we’re exploring ways that we can help them.
Final words?
I’d like to get the word out about how much my team and I value the support we received from the dental industry. The campaign wouldn’t have been such a huge success without the support of the dental industry and Darby Dental Supply. It was a true example of the industry uniting and supporting a cause that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with dentistry. And I’m truly happy to be placed in this role of making all of it happen.
