Center Point: building a stronger community
Center Point, a treatment center currently present in California, Texas, and Oklahoma, focuses on rehabilitation of citizens and their integration back into the community. The organization, started by two recovering addicts, strives to help other addicts, veterans, women and children, homeless, etc. to develop as individuals, to learn personal and social skills, and to grasp moral responsibility. They help individuals reclaim self-worth and dignity and provide a foundation for change.
Why should businesses in the community team with organizations of this kind? The first of many reasons is pure philanthropy. Volunteering, especially in the form of giving back to your own community, helps all who are involved. As individuals, we get the satisfaction of knowing we are helping, and the organization for which we are volunteering reaps the benefits of our time and service to help them meet their goals.
Benefits of connecting with the community
As a small business, involving your employees in volunteer experiences, especially one like Center Point whose focus is your own community, helps bring you all together for a common and greater purpose, and while service and stewardship, essentially giving back, are an important part of a “whole picture,” it is certainly an added bonus that your company will benefit from the networking that will naturally happen as you become involved in community projects.
You will meet other individuals with common goals and ideas, and your business associates will mingle with others as you all build a sense of community from the bottom up. A strong community is good for business.
To help invest in your own community, consider becoming affiliates with a program like Center Point. Perhaps you could offer entry level positions to some of their graduates or have your staff volunteer as mentors to those trying to reintegrate into the community or business world. Tutors for those trying to obtain a GED or further education would be a great contribution to your community as well. Your company and your employees will be better for their involvement, and your business will grow from employees who have a vested interest in their community.
Bryan Thompson
July 25, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Hi Kristyl. I love what Center Point is doing. When my wife Kristin and I set out early this year to take the posts, community environment, and energy of our personal development blog and turn it into an actual live experience, the only word we could come up with that people would identify with was “church.”
But we don’t want it to feel like a church – no Gregorian chants, no memorizing creeds. We just wanted to find a way to help people form communities and inspire people to pursue their passion. It has been a fun journey, but what I find is that the whole “building community” thing? Yeah, people CRAVE that! So, I for one am glad to see any posts about the need for companies to CONNECT with PEOPLE.
Great article!