TriMark Hurricane Harvey Relief

Good Friday afternoon! We reached $26K and are still being asked if we are accepting money. Yes, we are! However, I again cannot thank you enough for your generosity! It’s being put to very good use.

It’s been a while since the last update and I apologize for the delay. Needless to say, things have been progressing and moving along. We receive requests, validate and assess the need, and then we disburse funds and collect receipts.

As the news reported, while we were busy assisting those affected by Hurricane Harvey, Irma made landfall on our southern region causing an immense amount of disruption and destruction to the state of Florida. We are thankful to say no one has been harmed in either storm; nor did the company experience significant property damage.

We continue to assess the needs and get as creative as we can in moving forward; we’re not only addressing the needs of TriMark Strategic, but our sister company TriMark R.W. Smith too. To date we’ve assisted with housing needs for employees who did not qualified for FEMA assistance. We helped an employee who needed flooring in their home; insurance did not cover the expense due to the employee not having flood insurance.

We started an internal employee recognition program about six weeks ago at our company. Several employees were recognized for going above and beyond in helping others during these difficult times. Here is one of those stories: “I gave a coin to JD for his willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty. He made a special trip last Friday to deliver equipment to the Beaumont office. This trip included him driving from Dallas to Houston to pick up more equipment. Then dropping off equipment for us at a Sonic job in Mt. Belview and then driving to Beaumont. He met me at 7:30 that evening to unload the equipment. Around 8:30 I told him he had to spend the night at my house there are NO hotels for him to stay in due to the hurricane. I sat him down in my best chair in front of the TV with a sandwich and a cool one. He left my house at 6:00 am Saturday morning to head back to Dallas.”

It is a blessing to see employees so proud of their company and all they have to offer, not only to our customers, but to their fellow teammates!

We will update as we help more.

Once again, your generosity is overwhelming. Please know, our employees are still assessing damages and the task is overwhelming. They are reporting their needs as they take the recovery process one step at a time.

Our Houston and Beaumont worksites are up and running. Our Beaumont facility was contacted by a church in Lumberton, TX in an area which remains heavily flooded. Woodcrest Methodist Church is currently acting as a shelter. They are housing almost 200 evacuees who still have no access to their homes due to the water. While this church/shelter provides food, housing, and care to evacuees, they are also feeding numerous volunteers and those helping with rescues. The church’s refrigeration systems are not working. TriMark/ISI is loaning them used refrigeration equipment currently stored in our Dallas and Houston locations.

Tomorrow morning (Friday) a shipment of: two-2 door refrigerators, one-3 door refrigerator, and one-3 door freezer will be headed to our Beaumont location; one unit given to Woodcrest Church on loan, additional units will be available for other needs. We have other donated items we will be delivering as TriMark Strategic’s regional office received items through employees, a Dallas area school, and other friends/families who wanted to meet tangible needs.

Friday’s shipment will provide evacuees over $500 worth of items needed to work to their homes once allowed entry:

Gloves: heavy duty/water resistant
Safety Masks
Safety glasses
Oversized sturdy trash bags
Box cutters
Extra razors for box cutters
Wheel barrels
Hammers
Miscellaneous school supplies
Coffee cups

When speaking to the church coordinator, she fought back the overwhelming emotions when she learned help is on the way. We’ve added a photo of some of the supplies compiled ready to be loaded onto the truck.

#TriMarkBringsIt #TriMarkHelpingTriMark #TriMarkStrong

Good Sunday!

Thank you again for donating. We are starting to hear from the employees directly; through text and email. While some have been evacuated, others have taken family and friends into their home and are letting us know their needs too. As you can imagine, supplies in their areas are sparse until relief can get into the area (rescues were still taking place in some areas as of yesterday). Thankfully the water continues to rescind.

The GM for our Beaumont site, sent in these photos of the HEB store in their area on Friday. As you can see supplies are limited, if any.

We hope to have more updates early next week and will let you know how the funds are being spent.