At this time of year when we gather with our families for a feast of food and shared company, I especially appreciate our employees who make the time to help others celebrate Thanksgiving.

Here are employees from our Atlanta office helping sort at a food bank.

Here Sam Kirkland, Dan Kirkland and Kasey Relford from our Atlanta office prepare to deliver food to those who would otherwise not have a Thanksgiving.

Here is a more complete description from Cindy McEnerney in Atlanta.

Thanks, guys!

On October 25, Ipswitch sponsored a food drive on behalf of North Fulton Community Charity, “NFCC” – specifically cooking oil, laundry detergent, diapers, and soup or soup stock as the pantry was out of those items.   Ipswitch matched item for item the donated food, collectively Ipswitch and 46 employees donated 12 bottles of oil, 14 boxes of cereal, 4 containers of detergent, 5 bags of diapers, 26 cans of soup, 8 canisters of oatmeal.

On November 8th, 13 employees went to North Fulton Community Charity to stock the shelves and present NFCC with a $1,000 donation from the iCare program.  Getting the food to those who need it, that was an eye opener.  The volunteer staff from Ipswitch started our work  day with an explanation of the how NFCC came to be, who they serve and what they offer.   When we arrived we took the donated food to a staging area and found a large pile of donated goods there as well.  We began separating the peas from the peanut butter, ramen noodle soup from chicken noodle soup, so on and so forth.  Imagine a grocery store receiving a shipment of groceries all mixed together, that is what we had to sort through.  So once the food is separated, then it is put on a shelf for the food distribution volunteers. Each qualified family receives enough groceries to last 10 days.

We didn’t stop there, we continued to collect donations from our employees to buy turkeys for the NFCC Thanksgiving Meal.  The donations in this case went to purchase turkeys and Ipswitch matched our  turkeys; together we purchased 112 turkeys.  Last year there were 1,000+ families that were selected for the Thanksgiving meal distribution, but only 100 turkeys were available.  This year there are 1,200+ families.  On November 21st, Dan Kirkland, Sam Kirkland and Kasey Relford picked up 112 turkeys and delivered them on behalf of Ipswitch Inc. to the Thanksgiving Meal Distribution Center doubling what was given away last year.  A special thanks goes to Dan Kirkland who spearhead this activity on behalf of Ipswitch starting in October and who negotiated a deal on our turkeys stretching our dollars.

Our initial goal was to purchase 30 turkeys, working together as a team we surpassed it!