On Wednesday, July 21, a group of 14 A1 Garage Door Service trainees and three trainers spent their morning not fixing garage doors but painting walls and cleaning floors at the Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA in downtown Phoenix.
As part of our structured training progress, each trainee class completes a volunteer project for a local charitable organization. This exercise not only introduces these new team members to our A1 Cares charitable giving program, it also allows them to connect with each other and the greater community.
“It helps them realize that we’re an A1 family and that we’re in the business of taking care of people, so being able to give back is huge for them,” said Andrea Davis, training and development specialist. “It gives them the ability to have the understanding of what that means.”
Michael Gill, senior program director for the YMCA, said the center – like many other businesses – is facing labor challenge shortages, making it difficult to keep up with small-but-necessary facilities projects. The A1 Garage team lent a hand by painting and preparing hallways, classroom and event space.
“It means a ton,” said Nate Alexander, a technician trainee from Phoenix. “Here at A1, we care about not only everyone internally but in our whole community, so to be able to come out here and help these people and everything they do, it really means a lot to me. I’m glad that we’re able to do this.”
The Valley of the Sun YMCA is one of the oldest nonprofits in Arizona, established before Arizona achieved statehood. The organization serves more than 100,000 families in 15 communities by providing a number of facilities and services for a cross-generational population.
For facilities director Keevan Rankin, having companies like A1 Garage volunteer their time to help makes a world of difference for the center and the people it serves.
“It’s big, it’s big for the community,” Keevan said. “It just shows that we’ve still got good people out there that want to help the community and want to make this world a better place.”