Honoring Shapiro’s Heroes Everywhere
Each November, it’s a tradition at Shapiro that we take time to honor veterans and give special recognition to our employees who have served in the military—our “Shapiro’s Heroes.” In 2019, we expanded this initiative by inviting our team members to share photos and stories of the veterans in their families.
We highlight the stories of our Shapiro’s Heroes in a daily company email every day in November, along with Facebook posts that our team members can like, comment, and share. As Shapiro’s Heroes has growth, so has the engagement and positivity from our team members. Each story is unique and inspires gratitude for the sacrifices our veterans have made for our nation. Social media sharing has helped create interpersonal connections between our team members across the country, no matter how far apart they are.
Then, as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to unfold, a team member at our El Paso plant sent us a photo of his son who works in healthcare and asked us to pray for him. That’s when we knew we needed to extend our Shapiro’s Heroes to include people on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, we have honored nurses, doctors, fire fighters, paramedics, phlebotomists, homecare workers, hospital maintenance workers, and blood donors who are selflessly serving others while COVID-19 continues to cause great need. We have a long list of heroes who have not yet been posted, and employees on our team are anticipating the opportunity to honor someone special in their life.
To spread our gratitude further, we will be opening up Shapiro’s Heroes by asking for names and photos of those who work in the field of food delivery, grocery stores, postal workers, gas station attendants, and other roles who are working hard to provide the goods and services we all rely on. And as the pandemic unfolds, we see our hero list growing to every Shapiro team member who has worked to hold our company together during this unprecedented time in history. Honoring heroes is now a part of the fiber of our culture. And we are never short on heroes at Shapiro.
As our Shapiro’s Heroes program grows, we hope that other companies follow suit. Honoring and thanking people who are selfless seems like the least we all can do.
To see our Shapiro’s Heroes posts, like us on Facebook!