Keeping Morale, Building Community

Though the global situation is bleak and seems to be getting worse and worse with every new news update, the virtual world is creating a sense of community which is truly inspiring. Companies and individuals are stepping up to help those around them while still keeping their social distance. Though it can be easy to let this pandemic create fear and depression, the support, creativity, and newfound community that has become prevalent on social media and in the corporate landscape is much needed and inspiring hope around the world.

As humans, social interaction is not just something people enjoy, but has been proven as something that is craved. The need for social interaction is something that connects us all as humans regardless of nationality, race, gender, age, or political stances. 

Our company thrives on creating genuine connections with those around us. We respect every individual and company that shows their authentic self. As such, we wanted to highlight a few local and national people and organizations that are helping bridge the lack of social interaction gap by shedding love and hope in our newfound virtual communities.

Memphis Rox

This organization is near and dear to my heart personally. Memphis Rox was founded as a support arm and revitalization effort to the surrounding community. Before the outbreak of Covid-19, Memphis Rox helped to support local families and individuals through clean-up volunteer days and by offering free access to the gym and the gym’s restaurant for those unable to pay their way. 

During the crisis, many of the people in their community were unable to stock-up on necessities many of us were lucky enough to obtain for ourselves. Though the gym is officially closed to the public, the team members continue to provide support to these individuals through providing daily meals. Leadership has continued to financially support the team members as some live in the surrounding community.

Though some organizations are unable to provide such resources during this time as their doors are closed. Memphis Rox is an organization that has rethought their normal operations to better serve their community during this crisis and continue to serve those they originally sought to help.

National Cowboy and Western History Museum

I would be my pleasure to introduce you all to a bright and inspirational soul, Tim Send.

Tim is the security guard at #HashtagTheCowboy. As the pandemic forced the National Cowboy Museum to close their doors to visitors, Tim was roped into managing the museum’s Twitter feed by Seth in Marketing to continue publishing content on their social media account. With some help from his grandson Lucas, Tim has taken Twitter by storm! 

Tim shares pictures of the interesting things he finds around the museum and adds in either information about the item or his own commentary. Tim signs off on every tweet and once, accidentally, asked Twitter for “Twitter tips, please”. Through his own authenticity, the museum’s following has grown exponentially and has inspired many security guards around the world to continue doing what they do to protect these treasures.

ServiceIndustry.Tips

We all know that the service industry has been hit hard by this pandemic with many servers, bartenders, and hotel staff unsure of if they will be able to pay rent or even go back to work at the same restaurant or hotel they had to leave. 

ServiceIndustry.Tips was created to help these individuals that have been affected by the social distancing recommendation. It works quite simply: “Select your city. We will present you with a randomly selected neighbor who works in the service industry and where they work. You send them money directly with Venmo or Cash App. We don’t charge a fee and don’t collect any of your data.”

The goal of ServiceIndustry.Tips is to assist any worker in the service industry that receives most of their income through tips. If you would like to support a local industry worker, you can click on this link and support them with however much you are able to give. If you would like to view the other cities that you can help, you can click here.

Mid-South Food Bank

Many school-aged children in our area received meal support through their schools. With schools being closed during this pandemic, many families feared they would be unable to provide the meal that their school had typically provided for their children. The Mid-South Food Bank stepped in to mitigate this concern by orchestrating mobile pantries in the communities affected most by this pandemic. 

Though they have suspended their warehouse volunteer program until further notice, they encourage those that are able to still provide donations in the form of food or funds. Serving these families is a heightened need during this time as these are families that were unable to stockpile goods. If you are able to help, here is the information for doing so.

Autozone

Autozone has always been dedicated to going the “Extra Mile” for their customers, employees, and communities, and they continue to do so during this outbreak.

In this time of crisis, we are committed to providing automotive parts and products to first responders, healthcare professionals, automotive repair shops and people who rely on their vehicles to get to the pharmacy or grocery store. From providing automotive batteries, headlights, windshield wipers, brakes and other automotive hard parts, our ability to keep stores open and make sure the motoring public has the essentials it needs to get back and stay on the road is critical.”
- Autozone.com

To help protect their customers on the road and in their stores, Autozone feels it is their social responsibility to keep stores open so that essential workers can feel safe on the road and give peace of mind to others that need to obtain essential goods. The company has also increased their daily store cleaning and disinfection protocols to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. They launched their curb-side pick-up initiative on March 24th in hopes to reduce the amount of people within the stores as well. 

Autozone felt it imperative to support their employees as they now have increased probability of contracting COVID-19 while stores remain open. To mitigate stress and fear for their employees, Autozone is providing COVID-19 emergency benefits in the U.S. and Puerto Rico to help deal with the challenges they may face as a result of COVID-19. Employees are encouraged to use these paid emergency time-off hours for getting tested or seeking medical attention, assist family members battling COVID-19, or however else they see fit and are available throughout the remainder of the year.

The Music Industry

As we begin to embark on concert season, many festivals have been cancelled or postponed due to the outbreak. Much like Live Aid in the 80s, artists are putting on streamable concerts in lieu of their previously scheduled concerts to uplift the global community and collect donations for these artists or non-profits. Artists from Dave Matthews to Willie Nelson to John Legend are hosting streamable concerts so that people can enjoy live music and donate to those in need all from the comfort of their home. 

Music is an empowering force and, though we might not all have the same taste, it unites us all. Many artists have decided to put on their own special concert series either through Instagram Live, Facebook Live, Twitch or Youtube Live. You can check out the upcoming concerts here!

We love playing music in our office here at Sauce, we even have a go-to playlist specifically for our Friday Production Meetings! If you want to jam with us, here's the playlist we play.

TikTok

If you don’t know what TikTok is, it’s a social media platform filled with millions of short-form videos that are exciting, spontaneous, and genuine. People from all over the world create videos of themselves either being goofy, dancing, responding to memes, creating new trends, or making fun of themselves. During the outbreak, creators have begun to create more and more content as many of them are stuck inside their homes. Since March, there has been a surge in videos that are either uplifting or informative to help people come to terms with social distancing and keep a positive attitude during these challenging times.

Pamela Pumpkin aka Laura Clery is one of those creators that is producing content to uplift yet be informative on how to keep yourself and others safe from potential infection. In this TikTok, Pamela Pumpkin walks through an exercise program everyone can follow along with at home. This workout titled “Pamela Pumpkin’s Quarantine Workout” focuses on proper hand-washing, sanitizing, and staying inside instead of the usual squats, lunges, and bicep curls.

TikTok is fairly addicting considering the short-form content that is available in abundance. If you need a good laugh or are hoping to take your mind off the social and economic situation we are currently facing, I’d highly recommend taking a few minutes to scroll through the platform. 

Pernod Ricard USA

You might not know the name Pernod Ricard USA off the top of your head, but you may know them by their products: Jameson, Malibu, Absolut Vodka, Kahlúa, Avión, and many more. It is no surprise that Pernod Ricard USA works primarily with the industries that have been affected the most by the stay-at-home orders. Instead of sitting back and waiting for all of this to blow over, Pernod Ricard has asked their Alcohol Reps to post this message to their social media accounts:

In an effort to help service industry professionals, Pernod Ricard is providing these individuals one meal a week from local restaurants. These individuals get to pick one meal out of three options to have delivered to their door. Not only are they helping to feed and provide comfort to the service industry professionals, they are also helping to give back to the local restaurant communities in hopes to soften the blow from lost revenue. 

Many of us were unable to celebrate St. Patty’s Day as is customary - green beer, parades, donning all the green available to us in our closets. Due to this, Jameson, one of Pernod Ricard’s brands, went to social media to ask all St. Patty’s Day celebrators to join them for an evening toast of their favorite Irish whiskey. Though we did not know the severity of our situation at the time, this sense of community was not taken away from many that love celebrating the Irish tradition. 

As professionals, networking is often a major part of our jobs. Since we are unable to meet at our offices or network with other professionals at events, Sauce has decided to host virtual networking happy hours every Wednesday during the stay-at-home orders.