2020 Local Love Awards

This will be our third year presenting Local Love awards as a way to recognize a few of our United Way workplace campaigns and the volunteers behind their success.

In 2020, most workplaces were facing immense change and challenges of their own as we got used to this new way of life. We adjusted our expectations accordingly, but the creativity, dedication and generosity shown throughout the almost 100 United Way workplace campaigns exceeded all our expectations.

Here are three workplaces that we think deserve some extra recognition:

The 2020 Social Influencer award goes to the team at Heritage Gas!

Like all workplace campaigns, theirs looked a little different last year. Gone were the backyard Olympics and ping pong tournaments, but Heritage Gas took advantage of social media to promote all that their employees were doing to support their local communities. Every like, share, and comment generated a $1 donation to United Way Halifax. That initiative raised $2,500 and when combined with their generous employee contributions, Heritage Gas had an increase of 30% in their United Way campaign.

Congratulations and thank you to the team at Heritage Gas!

Our Local Love award categories aren’t always the same each year – its not the Oscars! We knew this workplace was deserving of praise and recognition, but what to call it? We’re really proud to give the 2020 ‘Above & Beyond’ award to Emera!

The name of the award says it all – Emera went above and beyond in 2020. Reacting quickly to the pandemic, they announced early corporate support for our Atlantic Compassion Fund in the spring. And when fall came, the campaign team really gave it their all during the workplace campaign. It’s as if every Emera employee understood the devastating impact the pandemic would have on our most vulnerable neighbours.

Congratulations to Emera and thank you for over a decade of support.

TD Bank Group is on the forefront of innovation in their sector, so it’s no surprise when they bring that drive and creativity to their United Way employee giving program. We’re honoured to give the 2020 Campaign Innovation award to TD!

Not only did they adapt to the realities of the pandemic throughout their campaign, they saw an opportunity to present a large-scale, Atlantic-wide, virtual donor event. This event saw 200 United Way supporters tune in from all over Atlantic Canada, a live performance by award-winning rapper and producer Classified and his sidekick Owen ‘O’Sound’ Lee, and a personal story of perseverance from Jill at United Way Cape Breton.

Congratulations to the leadership and team at TD – we can’t wait to see what you come up with next!

*photo of TD Bank Group volunteers was taken pre-pandemic