West & Woodall Surprises Employees with Fun Way to Give Back to the Community for the Holidays.
Durham, NC, December 13, 2019 –
West & Woodall Real Estate regularly contributes to its community through the West & Woodall Gives Back program, but this year, the Durham-based firm decided to do things a little differently for the holidays. Owners Kirk West and Bert Woodall gave their employees $4,900 in cash to give out however they saw fit in order to try and reach as many people in the community as they could.
West and Woodall gathered agents and support staff for what they were expecting to be a pre-holiday party scavenger hunt on December 11, 2019. Instead of sending them on their way with directions for the scavenger hunt, the employees were divided into seven teams and presented with a gift box for each team. Inside each box was $700 in $1 bills. The employees were told that they had an hour-and-a-half to spread Christmas joy throughout Durham. They were also told to work together as a team, to come up with a plan and to make people happy. “We try to give back to our community in different ways throughout the year, but for this holiday season, we wanted to do something even more fun and more exciting,” said Bert Woodall, West & Woodall Co-owner, Broker and REALTOR®. “We truly have the best team of people that you could hope to work with, and we knew that they would love getting to do this for people in Durham.”
Some of the ways that the teams decided to give their money away included buying gifts for the Angel Tree at Brogden Middle School; paying for several patients’ parking at the Duke Cancer Center and donating to patients who cannot afford to buy wigs; buying lunch for customers at the Waffle House at 4406 North Roxboro Street and tipping the wait staff very well; donating to the Exchange Family Center, Urban Ministries, the Good Samaritan Inn, and students in need at Northern High School; and donating food to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. “Thank you to Bert and Kirk for making a bucket list item happen,” said Will Aucoin, Broker and REALTOR ®. “I have ALWAYS wanted to hand money to random people in our city. Only thing missing was my Santa suit.”
The money that was given away came from the West & Woodall Gives Back program, where the firm gives back to the community out of the profits from its residential and commercial sales. For 2019, the company pledged $25 per closing from both West & Woodall Real Estate and Pickett Sprouse Commercial Real Estate. The other beneficiaries of this year’s West & Woodall Gives Back program include the following:
· Q1 – Durham Crisis Response Center, Durham, $1,500
· Q2 – Sovereign Redeemer Community Church, Youngsville (to support a mission to Turkey), $3,225
· Q3 – Reality Ministries, Durham (to support The Corner House), $2,950
Agents bring ideas to the company about how the West & Woodall Gives Back funds should be spent for that quarter, and all employees vote on the idea that they like the best.