Carleen, Forrest, and Beth prepare to donate at a local Red Cross.

We are thankful that there never seems to be a slow day at FSI.  There is a perpetual race against the clock to get countless thousands of pick/pack/ship orders and kit packing projects out the door.  But despite the ongoing scheduling challenges, we still know the importance of taking time out to give back to the community.

FSI employees recently participated in a local blood drive and in the Christmas Feed the Hungry with the AAAG (http://www.theaaag.org/AAAG_Official_Website/Welcome.html).  The food drive was held on Christmas weekend and helped to feed over 3,000 people. 

In regards to priceless blood donations, the human body is able to safely donate every 56 days.  We do our best to go as a group every 56 days, and we welcome you to join us.  Find a blood drive near you and donate today (http://www.redcrossblood.org/)! 

FSI employees are also encouraged to participate in community involvement activities throughout the year, both corporately and individually.  We appreciate the business our clients give to us, and we want to show that appreciation by giving back to the community with our time, talents, and treasures.  Thanks to our clients for helping make this possible, and to our amazing employees for their spirit of generosity!

Lots of people lined up to help feed the hungry...

...and lots of people lined up to receive. "We're all Americans"

FSI “recently” participated in a charitable scavenger hunt race in Atlanta called Expedition Give.  Okay, we’re a little behind in posting this, but what can we say, we’ve been really busy fulfilling orders.  Anyway, Expedition Give is put on by Giving101 (www.giving101.org) – a nonprofit dedicated to developing the next generation of givers, civic leaders and philanthropists.  The charity’s programs educate the public about charitable giving, inspire individuals to act, and provide people with tools, information, and resources to make a difference in the lives of others.  Expedition Give is Giving101’s annual charity scavenger hunt where teams of 2 race all over Atlanta collecting items, taking pictures and completing charitable tasks to earn points.  At the end of the 5-hour event, the teams with the most points win.

You might be wondering why the 2 sets of scores.  We went with 2 sets because for some reason the folks putting on the race had different scores than what we came up with on our own. No problem, I'm sure there's a good reason, and the order of everyone's finish didn't change, only the margin of victory. We can only assume that they either got some of our points mixed up seeing as we had similar team names (FSI Rocks - Teams 1, 2, 3, etc.), or maybe they didn't count some of our items that we did complete.  Maybe we didn’t do them right, oh well.  But as far as our internal jawwing back and forth, we know what we completed, and the order didn't change, and most importantly, it was for charity who was the ultimate winner. In fact, together all the race participants:

• Collected more than 1,000 lbs of food for the Atlanta Community Food Bank
• Made more than 25 fleece blankets for the Women's Resource Center to End Domestic Violence
• Prepared over 200 sandwiches for the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless
• Wrote more than 150 letters of encouragement and thanks to the families of GA soldiers
• Donated over 500 articles of winter clothing to MUST Ministries
• Sorted over 1,200 items into care packages for our soldiers
• Etc, etc, etc...

Here are a couple of videos with highlights from the race and afterwards at FSI: