By Dean Savage, Apex Moving & Storage

Mike drives his 3 wheeled motorized scooter to church service every Saturday night. This weekend the church is doing its monthly food distribution in the gym after service. Every month Mike lines up with others to receive perishable and non-perishable food that has been brought there to be shared with people in need. As he patiently waits, he can see pallets of canned goods, coolers of meat, and bags of food ready for pick up. Even though Mike suffered a stroke years ago and struggles with communicating clearly, he is always smiling and thankful when his scooter is loaded with food and produce. What Mike does not see is the preparation that has been happening for days before the distribution began. This preparation involved Apex Moving and Storage trucks driving around the community picking up food at local food banks, collecting donated food from local businesses, and delivering the food to church campuses.

My wife Loretta and I are the owners of Apex Moving and Storage. Quite a few years ago we recognized that we had a passion to help those in need of food in our community. We began to serve with our church at their monthly food distribution. I would help with driving the church's small beat-up 16’ box van for pick-ups and drop-offs. After several months, God put on my heart that we should be utilizing our own company’s resources - not only to make the work easier, but because it was the right thing to do. With the resources our company has, such as library carts, dollies, boxes, pallet jacks, trucks, etc., the workload for each distribution was made easier with the equipment we utilized.

What does this have to do with marketing? I believe it is good to promote that your company serves in these capacities. The intention is not to brag about it, but to share with your community how you are helping to support it. We help with food drives for local food banks as well as pick-ups and deliveries for our local food banks. Additionally, we work with Move For Hunger, also doing pick-ups for them. All of this kind of information can go on your website and on your social media platforms. But beyond that is the recognition of those who see your team serving. I can't tell you the number of phone calls and email leads we've received because people have seen our trucks at the food banks or at our church campuses distributing food.

I’m not writing this article to simply tell our story, but hopefully to help inspire you to tell your story. What passion as the owner, general manager, or other leader at your company do you have that you can turn into a resource for your community? There are so many opportunities waiting to be explored. You can support an established organization such as Wreaths Across America or connect with a local agency that helps move mothers in need at a highly discounted or free rate. Or, you can independently collect resources for the community such as food, blankets, shoes and clothing.

By taking an active role in your community, you are creating name recognition for people like Mike, who sees our Apex truck outside the church every month and wants to promote and share with others about our how Apex supports the community. This is the best kind of marketing we could hope for.