Engaged Teams Build Communities

Health care workers, their managers and physicians care for others every day. And it doesn’t stop at the doors of our facilities.

On Martin Luther King Day this past January, 5,600 Kaiser Permanente employee volunteers took a “day on” to refurbish schools, staff food kitchens and work in more than 150 other projects in the communities we serve.

Helping others—and ourselves

More than 14,000 KP employees signed up for the Pound for Pound Challenge in the first three months of 2017. The program donated a pound of food to local food banks for every pound that participants lost in those months. The result: 72,893 pounds of food donated to our communities—enough to provide more than 60,000 meals.

Teams and regions have put their own stamp on this campaign. For example, Colorado organized a healthy competition for collective weight loss. Other regions reported dramatic, sustained changes in participants’ eating habits and fitness.

Teams step up

Unit-based teams across KP are conducting small tests of change—including social change—by going into the community to address hunger, poverty and other obstacles to total health. Team projects include:

• In South Sacramento (Northern California), about 100 KP workers from 22 UBTs helped local kids by building and donating bicycles to needy kids in the community—and building teamwork in the process.  
• KP workers represented by Steelworkers Local 7600 in Fontana (Southern California) helped kick off monthly sponsored food giveaways for needy families in their service area.
• Baseline Medical Offices’ Primary Care UBT in Colorado assembled Whole Foods Market meals for needy KP members and delivered them in person—a gesture that team members said meant as much to the families as the meals themselves.
• A call center team in the Northwest region donated more than 400 needed items and $195 in cash to a local camp for children who have or are affected by AIDS.

Commitment to communities

Frontline engagement furthers the social mission of both Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which is why the 2015 National Agreement provided for employees and their unions to work with KP to build strong and healthy communities.

“I was thankful to the team for participating,” says Fernando Gomez, a quality assurance specialist and SEIU-UHW member whose records scanning team participated in the Build a Bike program in South Sacramento. “It was fun and took a lot of teamwork.”

Adds Scan Center Supervisor Rozina Ali, “It was a very positive, moving reminder that we are here to help people. Afterward, a lot of us volunteered to do more.”

How to Get Involved

Here’s how you can get involved, make a difference and be recognized for it:

• Visit KPCares: Search and volunteer for KP-approved projects in your community. A new, mobile-enabled platform rolled out in October, which allows you to track your volunteer hours, connect with co-workers, view stories and videos, and more.
• Honor your peers: Nominate a team or colleague for a David Lawrence Community Service Award. These awards recognize individuals and teams each year who have made extraordinary efforts to improve the health of their communities. Winners are honored with $10,000 to designate to a nonprofit organization. Learn more and submit nominations online now. 
• Volunteer with your team: Talk with your fellow unit-based team members about volunteering as a team at a school, food bank or social safety net organization.