Every Friday afternoon for the past nine years, Trevor O’Reilly takes a break from his busy schedule as an investment counsellor to spend an hour with an unlikely companion: a young boy from Admiral Seymour Elementary School in Strathcona.
“I pick him up from his classroom and if it’s nice we go outside. If it’s raining we go to the school gym or the staff room,” says O’Reilly. “We play sports, board games, bake, or even build Lego ships.”
O’Reilly is six foot five and clean-cut, and he says that at first he felt like a fish out of water hanging from the monkey bars at an elementary school playground. But any initial discomfort disappeared once he understood the impact his weekly visits were having on the boys he was mentoring.
“I was always unsure of what kind of effect my volunteering would have, but after getting such great feedback from the teachers at Seymour, I was hooked,” says O’Reilly. “This is a city of have and have-nots, and these kids have it rough. So to be able to go to an inner-city school and provide one hour of my time and see them smile is worth every minute.”
O’Reilly is able to spend an hour a week volunteering thanks to a partnership between his company, RBC-owned investment firm Phillips, Hager & North (PH&N), and the Employee Volunteer Program at Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver (BBGV), an organization that has been facilitating volunteer-based mentorship programs in the Lower Mainland since 1978.
“PH&N has always been a huge supporter of philanthropy and volunteer work in the community, so they got behind me very early on and are happy to donate my time and financially support Big Brothers,” says O’Reilly.
For him, these types of exchanges benefit everyone involved: the children get the support they are lacking and he feels reinvigorated by helping someone in need. PH&N also benefits from giving back to the community and gains a happier employee. An employee volunteer program simply consists of supporting and encouraging employee volunteering by allowing flex or paid time off for employees to volunteer during work hours. Additionally, a small corporate gift is donated to the charity at the end of each year to recognize employee volunteers for their efforts.
“It’s such a small commitment in the grand scheme of things and it has a larger positive effect than the time put in,” says O’Reilly. “I come back feeling positive and refreshed and ready to finish up the last couple of hours of my work day.”
Recent studies show that employee volunteer programs are not only simple ways of giving back to the community but also extremely beneficial for companies. According to a number of surveys conducted by Deloitte, a U.K.-based business consulting firm, these programs can help boost employee morale and productivity, and also give employees the skills needed to succeed in leadership positions.
Valerie Lambert, executive director at BBGV, agrees with these points, adding that employee volunteer programs can benefit businesses in a number of other ways.
“When companies encourage employees to volunteer, it’s a really visible demonstration of commitment to community,” says Lambert. “I think that a lot of companies really want people to view them as community contributors.”
To facilitate this type of community engagement, BBGV’s employee volunteer program partners with companies that are willing to donate one hour a week of an employee’s time to help young boys and girls in need of mentorship and guidance. BBGV then matches the volunteers with students at schools near their offices and provides screening and training in order to maximize the impact of the program.
According to Lambert, the employee volunteer program can help change the lives of everyone involved, which is why BBGV is hoping to expand it in the coming year.
“We currently have nine major corporate partners, and we are hoping to expand that to 15 in the next little while,” says Lambert.
Throughout all of its programs, BBGV provides mentorship to over 1,100 children and youth and to 60 different schools across the Lower Mainland and the Sea-to-Sky corridor. It also organizes two major fundraisers a year and is always willing to find creative ways to facilitate volunteer opportunities and other forms of corporate philanthropy for companies looking to contribute to the community in meaningful and efficient ways.
“We have ideas for everybody, so if companies just come and talk to us, we can find something that works for them,” says Lambert.
