KloecknerCares: Warm Feet for Warriors

In one of the first company-wide KloecknerCares events, branches across the country participated in the Warm Feet for Warriors charity drive. Warm Feet for Warriors is a program run by Soldiers’ Angels where socks are collected for active military and veterans. Quality, warm socks are the most requested items by service members, who are given a certain allotment before they have to start buying their own.

“We had socks everywhere,” said Sustainability Process Manager, Bonnie Stewart. “I think because there is a lot of former military people that work at Kloeckner, particularly out in the field, they were really excited about this event.”

Across all the branches, Kloeckner was able to collect over 4,000 pairs of socks.  Then, for Military Month in May, the branches sent out cards to deployed military.

“Just a, ‘hey, thinking about you. Thanks for your service,’” Bonnie said. “We sent them all out and then we started getting thank you letters from the Soldiers’ Angels organization for doing it.”

As the KloecknerCares program picks up momentum, more and more people are participating. Bonnie thinks that the most important element to the program’s success is finding an enthusiastic person at each location to push the events through. Having a cheerleader on the ground getting the word out makes all the difference.

 “One of our biggest challenges is finding someone in each branch who can take the extra time needed for championing a KloecknerCares event,” Bonnie said. “We have several branches that really do have that cheerleader, those champions, and they are very successful in the program.  KlocknerCares is definitely gaining momentum.”