In today’s fast-moving society, many of us bounce between work and home trying our best to balance each, and it can become easy to forget about other things going on around us and in our community. This is why at Zasio, one of our focused efforts is to help bridge this gap through a culture of caring and service. It starts with our leadership, extends through our employees, and into our community.

We do this in several ways. For our employees, we believe it’s important to provide different opportunities throughout the year so everyone can choose to get involved. Here are some examples of how our team was able to participate and contribute to our community:

We donated our free time to volunteer at the Idaho Food Bank. The Idaho Foodbank is the largest distributor of free food assistance in Idaho. The ZCares team scooped 1,200 lbs of frozen potatoes, which will provide 1,300 meals for families in our community!

We gave forward our turkeys. Each year employees are given a turkey for Thanksgiving. This year, over half of our staff donated their turkeys to either the Idaho Foodbank, or others they knew personally who were in need.

We purchased items for the Women’s and Children’s Alliance (WCA). The WCA provides services to women, men and their children healing from domestic abuse and sexual assault. We decorated our lobby’s Christmas tree with tags from the WCA Giving Tree program. These tags note the WCA’s facility, shelter, and child care needs. Employees can select a tag and purchase the item, which we delivery to the WCA before Christmas.

We rode our bikes in the Treasure Valley Ride to Defeat ALS. The ALS Association is leading the fight to discover a cure for ALS. Zasio challenged the ZCares team, which included employees and their families, to raise at least $150 per person. Accepting this challenge, the ZCares team ended up in the Top 10 teams for highest amount raised!

“When you have a strong customer-centric culture like ours, service to our community is a natural extension,” says Cindy Zasio, VPO. “We want our staff to feel a connection to their surroundings. It’s important for us to make the community we live in better.”

Aside from organizing volunteer opportunities for our team, Zasio made corporate donations to charities near and dear to our hearts in 2019.

We sponsored three children for the Shop with a Sherriff program. This program is designed to unite Ada County Sheriff deputies and public safety employees with local disadvantaged children for a special day of shopping. Each child is guaranteed new shoes, several outfits of winter clothing, and a few toys for the holidays.

We sponsored 24 kids through the YMCA Make a Splash program. The Make a Splash program is a national water safety program created in an effort to provide access to swim lessons, at low or no cost, for children across the country. Since Idaho has the second highest unintentional drowning rate in the nation, teaching kids how to swim and be safe around water is an initiative Zasio feels very strongly about.

We became a member of the Women’s and Children’s Alliance (WCA) Hope Society. Hope Society members are multi-year donors who believe passionately in the work the WCA does. The Hope Society helps provide sustainable funding for the WCA to serve the increasing needs in our community.

We participated in the fundraiser for a St. Alphonsus Mobile Mammography Unit. Saint Alphonsus knows it is critically important for women to stay ahead of a cancer diagnosis. Yet, in Idaho only 30% of women who need mammograms are getting this life-saving screening. The proceeds from the fundraiser will go to purchasing a new mobile unit.

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2019, we continue to be thankful for our team, our customers, and the great community here in Boise. We look forward to exploring new opportunities for community involvement and support in 2020; keep an eye out for the purple ZCares team, we’ll be around!