Hopefully you’re not sick of hearing me talk about Build Then Bless, because it’s not stopping anytime soon!
Build Then Bless means everything to our team.
You can read a little bit more here if you don’t know the full story of Build Then Bless or what it actually means to our company.
In this article, I am going to share one of my all-time favorite Build Then Bless stories that I heard from one of our team members, and then I want to explain a few of the reasons why we love this program so very much.
Caitlyn Hartung
This story comes from one of our favorite team members at Lemonade Stand. She’s a member of our content marketing team, and she is just awesome – always making people laugh and making sure that people feel comfortable and loved in their workplace. What a great team member she is!
“A few weeks ago I was at the grocery store, picking up snacks for a movie night, and already running late. As I was walking past the other checkout lanes, I overheard a man ask the cashier if the store took Apple Pay because he left his wallet at home. When the cashier said that they didn’t, I heard him say “Shoot. Well, I guess we need to put these back and get them at a different time, buddy.”
I looked over, I saw a dad and his son with what looked to be snacks for a movie night of their own: candy, microwavable popcorn, sodas… the works. So before they could leave, I walked over and asked if I could pay for their groceries. The dad tried to argue against it, saying that I didn’t have to, but I insisted and explained the Build The Bless funds we get from Lemonade Stand.
As I was paying for them, the dad leaned over to his son and said, “Do you see what this woman is doing? She’s being a good person and helping others out, which is something more people should be doing.” They thanked me again after I got the receipt, and I was on my way. I was almost to my car when I heard the little boy shouting “Thank you!!!” to me across the parking lot.
I fondly remember the movie nights I had with my dad when I was growing up, so it was such a sweet moment to be able to be a part of that for another kid and their dad. Being able to swoop in and help make it happen reminded me that the little acts of kindness and giving that we show others really add up.”
This story is amazing to me.
This is the embodiment of Build Then Bless. You see someone else, no matter where you are, that needs a little bit of help – help that you can offer (whether that’s a small financial pick me up, or just a few extra minutes of service), and then you act on it. You might get a little bit uncomfortable even. The point is that you are thinking outside of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel comfortable approaching someone. It doesn’t matter if it’s not going to benefit you in any way. Those things don’t matter! What matters is that you are helping out another human being who really needs it. That’s Build Then Bless.
No Big Checks
One of the things that we’ve realized is that giving back through Build Then Bless means we will never be one of those companies who goes to a charity or to an event and holds up one of those massive checks written for thousands of dollars for all of the media to see.
But we kind of like it that way.
Build Then Bless wasn’t built to be a large display of wealth or for Lemonade Stand to generate massive amounts of PR. It was built around the idea of having private, intimate interactions with other genuine people like in the story above. It is supposed to be for our team members to go out and bless other people – not just for our CEO to look good handing over a ginormous check to some other institution.
I’m not at all saying that giving to charities is bad or that getting a little bit of positive publicity for your company is a horrible thing to do. Not at all. I’m just suggesting that it isn’t the only way to give back to other people, and it isn’t the way that Build Then Bless operates.
We love that our team members get the credit for the giving that they do. They’re the ones out thinking about other people. They’re the ones performing the act of service. We love to hear that they, individually, were able to make somebody else’s day better.
We live for stories like this! We love them!
Team Member Development
Another aspect of Build Then Bless that we want to just shout to the world about, is the way that it helps our team members to develop and to become better and better people.
Again, Build Then Bless isn’t focused on Lemonade Stand blessing other people. It’s focused on each of our team members being able to bless other people.
We encourage all of our team members to bless other people’s lives, and then we all share stories about people we’ve been able to interact with.
It promotes a culture of caring for others more than oneself, and those are the kinds of people that we want to be able to work with. Those are the kinds of people who are going to take the best care of our clients.
In fact, Build Then Bless changes the way that we interact with our clients. They’re just as much recipients of Build Then Bless as anyone else in the world can be. If one of our team members hears that a client is feeling sick or has been through a rough or challenging time, one of their first thoughts is “what can we do to bless that client’s life?”
What a cool way for employees to think about clients! This is so rare!
We credit a lot of that thought pattern to the development that has been fostered by Build Then Bless. It has allowed our company to grow and to keep growing!
Changing People’s Lives
One final thing that we absolutely love about Build Then Bless is that we truly believe it has the power to change people’s lives.
It has changed the lives of many of our team members, and it has truly changed the lives of many of the people that they have been able to interact with.
From Caitlyn’s story – “Do you see what this woman is doing? She’s being a good person and helping others out, which is something more people should be doing.”
You might think that buying candy and popcorn for someone’s movie night isn’t a life-changing event – and maybe it isn’t; however, our beloved team member was able to help teach this young boy by serving him. It doesn’t matter what the act of service was, she helped to potentially shape him and how he acts towards others by her example.
We want everyone in the world to be building and blessing – a lot of people already are! We know that if more people had this mindset, the world would be a completely different place. We would all be taken care of, not by government mandates or corrupt institutions, but by each other. When everyone is looking out for everyone else, you don’t have to watch your own back. Somebody else is already doing that for you.
What a cool world that would be, right? That’s what we’re hoping for with Build Then Bless.
Let us know here if you want to learn more about Build Then Bless and how you might be able to institute it at your company!