About six years ago, Jennifer Sobieraj Sanin, an architect at Ankrom Moisan Architects, Inc., sat down to lunch with a coworker and talked about joining the fight against hunger. As the child of a single parent, Jennifer says the issue of hunger hit close to home because, growing up, her family didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from.
Jennifer and her coworker had participated in Food Frenzy at previous firms and agreed that their company’s values and culture align with the organization’s mission. To raise funds and awareness, they brought a group of people together to brainstrorm ideas for a big event and decided to plan a low-key, pub-style trivia night fundraiser as part of Food Frenzy, Food Lifeline’s annual competitive food drive among local businesses.
With only about four years in business at the time, Jennifer says Ankrom Moisan pegged itself as the underdog in their division. Because employees there have a competitive nature, taking on more established firms — in addition to fighting hunger — spurred their success.
“The challenge of taking on big firms sounds a little twisted, but it really motivated us!” Jennifer laughs.
In its first year, the trivia night included about 50 participants and raised around $6,000. Thanks to their competitive drive, every year since then, Ankrom Moisan employees and friends have beat out fellow architecture and construction companies — and doubled their contribution. Last year’s event brought in over $100,000!
Jennifer says they strive for 100 percent employee participation in the trivia night, and many of their clients, vendors, consultants, family and friends join in as well. The folks at Ankrom Moisan are enthusiastic about supporting Food Lifeline and do a great job of encouraging others to get involved. It’s a great event that brings their whole company together to fight hunger.
Employees are generous throughout the year regularly volunteering at Food Lifeline’s warehouse, and in preparation for our move to the Hunger Solution Center, they donated their talent by creating the donor recognition art piece on the wall of our new facility. Ever the competitors, Ankrom Moisan designers held a friendly in-house contest to take on the project and presented the top three options to Food Lifeline. The beautiful wheat stalk design we chose will serve as a lasting legacy of gratitude to the donors who made this move possible.
We are so thrilled to partner with Ankrom Moisan’s generous associates in the important work of hunger relief. Like Jennifer, we’re so encouraged by the efforts we see the firm’s employees making toward solving hunger.
“Every dollar you give changes a person’s life,” Jennifer says. “We’ll do whatever we can to get meals to families in need.”
