When you ask Larry Robbins, president and CEO of PediPlace in Lewisville, to share some of the projects tackled by Frito-Lay’s Day of Caring, the list is long and comes easily.
“They’ve done everything from wash and clean plastic chairs that are in our exam rooms … to constructed furniture and enhanced the efficiencies of what our small clinic space offers … . [They] installed bookcases, installed cork spaces in our nurses’ station for bulletin boards, provided camera equipment and painted murals in new spaces.”
Frito-Lay and PediPlace, which offers health care for children in low-income or uninsured families, go way back. The relationship started even before Day of Caring existed, but it now coalesces around this special event that’s held each October. It’s a day when the Plano-based Frito-Lay employees, in partnership with the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, dedicate their time to giving back to the community. First launched in 2009 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the company took the initiative nationwide in 2021.
Glenn Pratt has been involved in each of the 13 Day of Caring events. The Frito-Lay supply-chain senior manager started as a volunteer. His involvement continued to grow until he became the D-FW leader for the initiative in 2019, just before its 10th anniversary. Of course, the year after that, the pandemic complicated everything. But this year, things got back to normal.
“It’s really an impressive effort — 2020 and 2021 were really a challenge, figuring out what we could do,” he says. “It was all virtual in 2020. In 2021, it was half virtual, half in-person. This year, we were fully back into the community.”
Based on the numbers, it’s clear the employees were happy to be back, with over 800 of them — the most of any D-FW-based company — donating their time and effort to making a difference in their hometown. Frito-Lay employees volunteered at the Plano headquarters and throughout D-FW to help more than 30 area nonprofits.
This year, projects at the Frito-Lay headquarters included making:
- Welcome bags for the Nexus Recovery Center, a sober community in Dallas for women recovering from addiction. “Women show up who don’t have anything other than what they walk in with, so we create bags with soap, shampoo, deodorant, a journal, a brush. The basics,” Pratt says.
- Lunch kits for a high school in South Dallas through Frito-Lay’s Southern Dallas Thrives Initiative, a year-round effort with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas to increase opportunities for young people in South Dallas. That partnership also involves a companywide clothing drive to provide professional clothes for people who can’t afford them, as well as career fairs.
- Various kits for kids at PediPlace, including gift bags for parents of newborns, birthday bags for small celebrations with clients and snack bags to feed children while they wait.
- Craft kits for children to receive as Christmas presents through Rainbow Days, a Dallas organization that helps kids in adverse situations build coping skills and positive goals for the future.
While those were being assembled, other employee teams went out in the local community and took on various projects, including:
- Building a pergola as a shade structure for outside activities at Nexus.
- Cooking lunch for the clients at Nexus.
- Hosting a fall fair for kids — complete with face painting and pumpkin decorating — at Vogel Alcove, a Dallas organization providing services for homeless children and families.
- Hosting a fall fair for senior citizens at Golden Acres Living and Rehabilitation while also delivering blankets, games and puzzles for residents.
“The agencies we benefit are part of the community where we work and live,” Pratt says. “From a corporate responsibility standpoint, you want the place where you’re operating and where your employees live to be the best it can be. PepsiCo and Frito-Lay really put their money where their mouth is on Day of Caring. They fund these projects. They’re spending thousands of dollars to benefit these agencies.”
Whether it’s assembling the kits at headquarters or working on a project on-site at one of the nonprofits, all the work happens in one day. If people are headed out into the community, they take a bus to and from headquarters. Frito-Lay funds the entire endeavor.
“I love Day of Caring for multiple reasons,” Pratt says. “One way I think about it is, for PepsiCo and Frito-Lay, October is our month of giving. For the full month, we ask employees to donate their money and their resources, giving to the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and other 501(c)3 organizations. We have an auction, where senior leaders donate events or items people can bid on to support United Way. Day of Caring is part of the giving we encourage. As a company we prioritize giving our time and effort to the community, and this is really highlighted during our annual volunteer day.”
For nonprofits like PediPlace, Day of Caring saves dollars, extends their missions and makes personal connections.
“There’s a legacy of relationships between people that are involved in PediPlace and Frito-Lay that passes [from] employee to employee,” Robbins says. “Whether it’s PediPlace or another not-for-profit organization in the area, any time you can do something that creates relationships with a potential donor, it’s far greater than any piece of literature we can put in front of people. Come see. Come do. Come help. Frito-Lay is definitely a model of how to do it.”