Community & Employee Relations

Community Relations - Local Volunteer Stories

Here are just a few encouraging stories of how Bard employees are making a difference in their local communities.

Employee Councils Coordinate Charitable Efforts
It’s been a long, hot day at the Valley of the Sun and Linda Kramarz’s sleeves are marked with sweat as well as specks of paint. Together with fellow employees of Bard Peripheral Vascular (BPV) in Tempe, Arizona, the HR Manager is helping to put a fresh face on low income housing for the elderly. As a company-sponsored volunteer project, this one is not unique except for one interesting aspect: it is part of a program of planned activities guided entirely by a volunteer committee of employees.  

Long known for their role as willing volunteers in Bard’s culture of caring, employees are increasingly taking over the plotting, planning, promotion and production of the charitable activities at their facilities. BPV is a granddaddy in its approach: its Charitable Contributions Committee has been around since 1997. But it is not alone: similar committees (or councils) are well established at such locations as Murray Hill, New Jersey; Moncks Corner, South Carolina; and, as of last year, Juarez, Mexico.

Typically, committee members are solicited by posters, e-mail or simply word of mouth. Their numbers range from six to 20. Some serve for one-year terms, those at other locations stay as long as they like. As a rule, the groups meet at the first of the year to outline a schedule of four to twelve projects. Then they divide up the projects, form teams, research their needs and coordinate the event. Regular meetings – either monthly or quarterly – keep things on track.

“I’ve had people come up to me and say they want to be considered at the next opportunity,” says Walter Servin, HR Manager, Nogales and Mexican Operations, who formed the Juarez committee. Response by the Juarez employees has encouraged him to think that such a program can succeed at Nogales as well.

These and similar programs will be an important part of fulfilling Bard’s centennial commitment to “100 Acts of Kindness,” according to Linda Hrevnack, Manager, Community Affairs and Contributions. “Bard will be 100 years old in 2007. We think it will be a fitting salute to our culture and our employees to mark it with 100 different volunteer activities. By uniting, our employees can meet this goal and be a great support to our local communities.  It’s all part of the Bard core value of service.”

Far From Home for the Holidays
Lindsay K. Pack, Regulatory Affairs Associate with Bard Peripheral Vascular (BPV), spent her holiday season in Khayelitsha, South Africa, providing aid to local families and the Baphumelele orphanage. The trip was a project of the Jordan Rader Foundation, whose mission is to give guidance, information, and financial support to deserving families who have unexpectedly lost a child.

At the orphanage, Lindsay, her husband and the other volunteers cleaned the grounds of broken glass and shards of wood, protected the play areas from wind and sand, painted the interior of the orphanage and assisted with food preparation. They also brought medical supplies they had purchased from Project Cure. 

”The nurses and doctors are volunteers at the orphanage and they kept saying, ‘What a wonderful Christmas this is!’” explains Lindsay. “In the kit was a Bard catheter, so I pulled it out to show them and explained that Bard is the company that I work for. The head of the orphanage said that she is very thankful that Bard has been so generous to them.”  

The group spent the rest of its time in the community, where they were able to adopt six families for Christmas, providing them with food, clothing, and a trip to the beach.

Lindsay hopes to gain even more from this trip than the satisfaction that comes from helping those in need. “While we were working at the orphanage, my husband and I decided that we wanted to try to adopt a little boy. We had been talking about adoption for years, but this trip confirmed it!”  

It's a Marathon Fundraiser for Bard Runners
On November 6, a team of six runners took to the streets of New York City for the 36th running of the New York City Marathon, and to raise funds for leukemia research.

”The idea of running the marathon was first suggested in April 2004 during a European Management Board dinner in Madrid,” said Geoffrey Pierson, VP, Human Resources, Bard Europe.  “At one stage in early 2005, 12 people were signed up from different Bard locations in Europe and the U.S., but the number gradually diminished as the day of reckoning approached."

Each member of the team successfully completed the 26.2-mile course, which winds through the city’s five boroughs and includes such highlights as 5th Avenue, Central Park, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

With the generous support of the Bard Foundation, the runners were able to raise over $23,000 for Children with Leukaemia, a London-based charity dedicated to finding improved treatments for childhood leukemia.