This holiday season, BBQGuys® partnered with Baton Rouge Catholic Community Services to launch our Angel Tree project that brought Christmas to nine families in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, area. BBQGuys employees purchased and delivered 250 gifts to the local families, who specifically requested each item given. Employees from every level of the company gifted generously and thoughtfully to make holiday dreams come true for members of the Baton Rouge community.

Our Community Outreach Committee set up and decorated an Angel Tree with paper ornaments that included the age and requested gift of each person participating in the program. Over a two-week period, employees selected people they wanted to “adopt” by pulling an ornament from the tree and purchasing their specified gifts. From there, our Community Outreach Team came in early and stayed late to ensure each and every gift was wrapped in time for delivery a week before Christmas.

BBQGuys employees gifted necessities like cookware and clothing along with seven bikes and three scooters for young children. Among the nine families were four senior citizens and 13 children age 18 or younger, all of whom received just what they wanted for the holidays. Arranging gift purchases and delivery was a logistical challenge, but it was heartwarming to see how genuinely happy our efforts made the families we helped. BBQGuys is looking forward to making the Angel Tree a new holiday tradition and supporting local families in the years to come.

Special thanks to Community Outreach Committee members Carri Brown, Ashley Gleason, and Bianca Bolden, without whom this amazing act of giving wouldn’t have been possible. We’d also like to recognize Emily Guardalabene, Melissa Decker, Kristin Nowlin, and Amy Bagley for contributing not only gifts but also their personal time to help get the gifts wrapped and delivered. Thanks to all employees who helped us in this undertaking, especially our Online Sales Specialists — 40% of their department participated, and they accounted for 35% of ornaments adopted from the Angel Tree.