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Scott Bailey was just a boy when his family’s house burned down.
Everyone escaped unharmed, but he has never forgotten the shock and desolation of losing everything he owned.
He has also never forgotten the way the community wrapped itself around his family in response, providing them with clothes and other items to help them get back on their feet. Students at his elementary school even pitched in with fund-raising drives.
“It was an unfortunate situation that became fortunate,” he says today, “because I felt that we were a part of the community. And the community all came together to support us.”
Today, Bailey lives in Rocketts Landing in Henrico County and works at Estes Express Lines, the nation’s largest privately held freight transportation carrier.
And he is delighted that Estes has given him the opportunity to return the favor, in effect, for all the support his family received in their time of need.
At a Feb. 13 breakfast at the Estes headquarters on West Broad Street, Bailey joined local employees and corporate leaders to celebrate $1 million donated to 20 charities across the country that were selected by Estes’ 18,000-plus U.S. employees.
Among the top vote-getters in the company’s “Our Heart” campaign was the Team Estes Employee Relief Fund – Bailey’s charity of choice. The fund provides short-term monetary grants to Estes employees in crisis, whether from natural or manmade disasters.
A few years ago, fellow employees helped an Estes driver from Pulaski, Virginia, who suffered a house fire just before Christmas – not unlike the fire that devastated Bailey’s family.
More recently, several Estes employees in the Chico, California area lost their homes to wildfires, but were quickly aided through the relief fund’s emergency hardship grants.
As the Pulaski driver observed, “It was the charity and kindness of fellow Estes employees that helped my family through the crisis.”
Feel-good campaign
At the Valentine’s-Day-themed breakfast, Estes’ President and CEO Robey W. “Rob” Estes, Jr. welcomed the crowd and noted that the $1 million donation was the fourth and final piece of a year-long, employee-focused Estes Care Package that also included cash bonuses and college scholarships.
Citing Estes employees who traveled to Puerto Rico on FEMA mission trips to help victims of Hurricane Maria (and voted to select the cause for a donation), he emphasized that family and teamwork have remained a focus for the company ever since “my grandfather started the business driving a truck” in 1931.
“You watch the news and hear so many bad things,” Estes said. “So it makes you feel good to hear about all the great things Estes employees do.”
Also on hand at the breakfast were representatives from some of the charitable organizations receiving portions of the $1 million, including Special Olympics, Fisher House Foundation, and Boys and Girls Clubs of America. New Henrico County resident Andrea Allshouse said that she advocated for the Boys and Girls Club after working with a student at Martin Luther King Middle School in Richmond and that she planned to continue volunteering with the organization – possibly at a Henrico school now that she has moved.
More than a button-click
Rob Estes’ son, Webb, vice president of process improvement for the company, told the breakfast crowd that while the charity selection process may have sounded like a simple matter of counting votes, it was anything but.
“[Employees] didn’t just click on a button; they were involved in the whole process,” he said. “We had close to 900 recommendations for organizations, so it was a daunting task to narrow that to twenty.”
Webb Estes grew emotional as he described a few of the personal stories employees shared about their charities of choice, and what those charities meant to them.
“A Charlotte employee said that when he was a kid, he had no toys, so he picked Toys for Tots. An employee in Memphis voted for St. Jude Children’s [Research] Hospital, because her son was treated at St. Jude’s in 2008.”
As he began to tear up, Estes – a father of two – hastened to assure the crowd that the employee’s son is fine now.
“So there’s no reason for me to be crying.”
“There are so many more stories to tell,” he added, “but I would just keep crying.”
Instead, Estes closed his remarks by describing employee experiences as they traveling the U.S. to deliver donation checks – checks that the company touted as perhaps “the most important freight Estes has delivered yet.
“We got to enjoy watching the checks going around the country,” Estes said with a grin. “Team members rode around on trucks to deliver checks – those great big golf checks that none of us [ordinary] people ever get to hold.”
As satisfying as it had been to award cash bonuses and scholarships, Estes reflected, it didn’t quite compare to the joy of giving to charities handpicked by – and personally connected to -- Estes team members. The program had an effect on employees and company leadership, in fact, that proved to be more far-reaching than anyone had anticipated.
“When we first started, we had no clue how awesome [Our Heart] would be,” Webb Estes said.
“This goes so much deeper than a one-time bonus.”
