Recognizing some notable community service efforts that took place this year, as selected by The Meeting Professional staff.
COVID-19 Field Hospital
New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center operated as a temporary COVID-19 field hospital, which closed in May after treating more than 1,000 patients. “We had to build capabilities as simple as a nurse call system and as complex as continuous monitoring of pulse oximetry,” Zachary Iscol, who served as deputy director of the Javits Medical Center and is a U.S. Marine veteran who fought in the Iraq war, wrote for CNN. “By the second week of April, we were doing over 100 intakes a day, half as many discharges, and had filled over 450 beds.”
Support at the Grassroots Level
The IMEX Group, the longtime strategic partner of MPI, recently donated $250,000 to MPI to provide support to meeting professionals facing distressed financial situations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the donation was been offered as a grant to the MPI Foundation, which directs funds to distressed members. Additional funding supports MPI’s 11 European chapters for initiatives to sustain education and country-specific programs that can re-engage industry awareness and commence recovery. “We believe that during this difficult period it is imperative for us to support the industry at a grassroots level,” says Carina Bauer, CEO of IMEX Group. “We all know the impact that this pandemic is having not only on the global industry, but on each one of us personally, on our friends and colleagues.”
Plant Some Sunshine
A Caesars Entertainment party during MPI’s World Education Congress (WEC) is a regular, and popular, annual occurrence. But the company, in partnership with Hello! Destination Management, took a different approach during WEC Grapevine, which took place, safely, in November amid the ongoing pandemic. A socially distanced event called Plant Some Sunshine gave 50 of Caesars’ top customers the opportunity to network while giving back to the local community. The group decorated more than 50 colorful planters that were given to assisted living facilities, bringing some joy to seniors who are facing particularly challenging times during the pandemic. Read more about this event in the January issue of The Meeting Professional.
Giving Holiday Joy
The Québec City Convention Centre offered its facilities and staff so that three Québec charities could carry out their missions of helping vulnerable families and giving joy to children during the holiday season. Moisson Québec has been assembling Christmas baskets that will be distributed to 9,000 families, with each family receiving two 25-lb. boxes of non-perishable food. Opération Père Noël helps underprivileged children, or those who no longer have a family, experience magical moments on Christmas morning because Santa Claus will have brought them a gift. Jeffery Hale Community Partners will distribute more than 200 Christmas baskets to families in need.
Sports Venues Step Up
Sports facilities across the U.S. became a critical part of the 2020 election process, with many offering in-person voting, while others were sites for vote counting, voter registration drives or ballot drop-offs. “What we saw with so many of these (sports) facilities is when they volunteered, when they made themselves available, that solved major problems for election officials,” Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, told USA today, which estimates that nearly 300,000 people cast their ballots via sports venues.
Helping Displaced Hotel Team Members
When the pandemic led to the cancelation of its annual Toast to Tourism event in May, the Visit Champaign County (Ill.) Foundation Board decided to earmark anticipated event funds toward the creation of a Hospitality Relief Fund. Along with a donation from the Champaign-Urbana Lodging Association and private donors, they were able to present $250 cash awards to 42 displaced area hotel team members and $750 “grand prize” cash awards to two of those recipients. The Hospitality Relief Fund was recently relaunched. Read more on the Destinations International blog.
The Best Use of Time
Kambria Sims, a Florida-based event planner, volunteers with Feeding Tampa Bay and plans their Fork Fight gala, which typically has about 600 attendees. When the 2020 gala was canceled due to the pandemic, Sims dedicated herself to growing Feeding Tampa Bay’s food pantry programs. She now oversees site visits, supplies and volunteers for the pantries, according to TODAY Food, which feeds 10,000 people per week in five counties.
Critical PPE Donation
In early April, the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians—who own and operate the Pechanga Resort Casino in southern California—donated 3,000 N95 masks to three local hospitals for use by doctors, nurses and frontline medical staff. This followed a food donation to one of the hospitals a couple of weeks earlier. We don’t hear as much about donations of masks and other forms of personal protective equipment (PPE) as 2020 comes to a close, but it’s important to remember that there was a mask shortage in the early days of the pandemic in the U.S., and donations such as these were critical for healthcare workers.
More Than a Shelter
Part of the San Diego Convention Center began operating as a temporary homeless shelter in April. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, since the venue is so large, it allows for beds to be spaced further apart than other shelters while staff members can provide a variety of services, including healthcare and help in finding homes. Art created by residents through a program facilitated by Mental Health Systems is displayed as “Art of the Home” and includes paintings, drawings, ceramics and more. “When I’m sitting here painting, I don’t think about being homeless,” Galvan told the Union-Tribune. “We can come over here and just think about painting, not the other stuff that goes along with everything.”
Italy Chapter’s Movie Charity Auction
The MPI Italy Chapter celebrated the successful seventh edition of The Movie Charity Auction held in Venice during the 77th Venice Film Festival with a hybrid event on September 11 that raised funds for the MPI Foundation. The amount raised for the Foundation after 15 days of the online auction was US$5,000—the best result ever after seven editions of the event. “Our chapter is proud of this accomplishment,” says Maddalena Milone, MPI Italy president. “We wanted to raise funds to offer concrete support to meeting professionals after the pandemic.”
OTHER BEST OF 2020 BLOGS
Dec. 14: Top 10 Members in the News
Dec. 16: Top 10 COVID Effects on Meetings
Dec. 17: MPItv Year in Review
