Employee campaign raises almost $3,000 to support breast-cancer care, education and research
Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 30, 2013 – Breast Cancer Awareness Month has come to an end with a pink explosion at DiMarco Group, DiMarco Constructors, Baldwin Real Estate and ADMAR Construction Equipment & Supplies locations across New York and Pennsylvania. Employees from the family of companies have joined together to create a very successful and unique fundraising effort that really took off. As a result, Elizabeth Wende Breast Care, a tenant at DiMarco property Fishers Landing, will receive a donation of nearly $3,000 for its charitable fund.
The weeklong effort started with a simple promotion to donate $5 to receive a pink ribbon, which granted employees permission to wear jeans on Oct. 29 and enjoy a free lunch. Then, employees were encouraged to wear pink with their jeans, and a vote was taken to award prizes to the “pinkest” man and woman. The campaign further escalated to a weeklong promotion where employees could donate $20 (or more) to have the DiMarco marketing team decorate a coworker’s office or cubicle with pink flamingos for a day. The sponsorship of the “flamingoing” was anonymous and, in some cases, groups of employees banded together to raise additional funds to ensure a really thorough flamigoing could occur. For example, a number of employees donated to sponsor the decorations in DiMarco President John DiMarco II’s office. At the ADMAR locations, employees banded together to collect donations and decorate the offices of their branch managers.
“According to a popular science blog, flamingos can fly an average of 373 miles in one night while migrating,” said Laurie Robb, director of shared services for the DiMarco family of companies. “And there’s about 300 miles between the most distant offices among the DiMarco/ADMAR locations. So it seemed fitting that hundreds of employees from our Rochester corporate office to our ADMAR locations from Albany to Buffalo, even ‘migrating’ south to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., all participated in this unique effort.”
Once the initial fundraising began, John DiMarco Sr., owner of DiMarco Group family of companies, decided to increase his individual support of the campaign by offering to match employee donations dollar for dollar. DiMarco is personally donating the matching funds, which will be donated to the Elizabeth Wende Breast Care Fund, a communitywide resource dedicated to increasing awareness about breast cancer and achieving better outcomes through education and research.
“As this campaign has progressed, a number of employees have come forward to share stories of personal survival or how they have been impacted by breast cancer among family and friends,” Robb said. “This effort has brought both fun and important awareness to our organization.”
