Hometown Heroes: Office competition raises 52,000 lbs of pet food for Humane Society
TAMPA (FOX 13) - It's dogs versus cats in the ultimate office competition. Every year, the men and women at BlueGrace Logistics fight to see who can collect the most amount of food for the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. The guys are the dogs and the girls, you guessed it, are the cats.
"It's not just a competition; it's rabid. It's gone back and forth each year and they're very aggressive about winning, which provides more food for the animals," said BlueGrace CEO, Bobby Harris.
Every year, their donations get bigger, from 2,500 pounds of food in 2011, to a 45,000-pound supply last year.
"It's something we're all so proud to be a part of here. One of our core values is to be caring of others. So it's really just in our blood to give back, and we love animals," said BlueGrace Employee, Whitney McKay.
BlueGrace has raised so much food for the Humane Society; they've got nowhere to put it. So, last month they rented out a warehouse to store the truckloads of food.
"That's what BlueGrace Logistics is known for. When they do something, they do it big," said Sherry Silk, CEO of the Humane Society of Tampa Bay CEO.
Sherry says the donations will feed their shelter animals for several months and support their “Animeals” program, which helps supply pet food to homebound and elderly pet owners in Tampa Bay.
"This takes the cake. We have individuals that bring us bags of dog food; some companies will do food drives, but nothing like this," said Sherry.
It's not unusual to see bags of dog food piled up inside the BlueGrace office while the cats and dogs tally up their donations. The winners get more than just bragging rights.
Last year, they got to dunk the losers!
"So, the dogs lost of course. And our CEO pranked them and brought in 60 pounds of ice and put it in the dunk tank," explained Whitney.
It's that fun work atmosphere along with some healthy competition that has equaled success for BlueGrace. And Bobby says it's only natural that his company would give back some of that good fortune.
"Any business that is doing well should give back to the things that mean the most to their employees,” explained Bobby. “We found that a common thread throughout BlueGrace is that we love our animals, and we specifically want to help those people who have those animals. This was a way we could do that."
And this year, BlueGrace will benefit the most animals yet. Their 2015 competition raised a total 52,000 pounds of food for the Humane Society.
As for the office competition, the cats (the girls) beat the dogs (the guys) for the third year in a row.