Seattle Ad Agency Serves in Dominican Republic
POSTED ON Apr 02, 2010 / UPDATED ON Jan 27, 2011
Randall Statler gets playful with children in the village.
Marcy Kelly, Greg Hunter, Randall Statler, Lisa Finger, Dave Estep
Children flock to Dave Estep.
Dave Estep with one of the Dominican families
Tom Horton with one of the Dominican families
HL2 is a Seattle-based marketing and advertising agency. In their own words, they are “a creative team that celebrates the challenge as much as the success.”
So when the time came to do some corporate team-building, they decided to be creative and really challenge themselves. For HL2, there was no weekend retreat to a remote camp, no high-ropes course, no “trust falls.”
Instead, the team decided to partner with Children of the Nations (COTN) and take a Venture trip to the Dominican Republic (DR).
“They wanted to provide a unique team-building opportunity for their employees, do something unusual in their corporate community, and make a difference by serving kids,” said COTN–USA staff member Kristen Bushnell, who accompanied the HL2 team.
“Our responsibility is to give employees experiences that will shape them,” said Greg Hunter, a Partner at HL2. “It is always important to invest in your people.”
“We chose the DR mainly because of logistics,” Greg said. “It was closer and meant less time out of the office. When we originally thought of doing multiple trips, we thought we would take some trips to Africa later.”
That idea changed when they returned from the DR. “Once the team got back, we decided we wanted to go back to the same place,” he said. “We want to go back to the same village, to build relationships with the people in the batey.”
“Think about this,” said Greg. “We’re a company of sixty people. We plan to do two trips a year—in February and November—with ten people each. That means by this time next year, half of our company will have had this same experience. How will that change us as a company?”
“For some on the team,” said Kristen, “it was their first time in a developing country. It’s always neat to see someone have that experience for the first time. When you’re out of your comfort zone, you see people’s true colors. They are fantastic people.”
“I think a lot of us didn’t know what to expect,” said Greg. “We were really impacted by the joy and liveliness we found there. Even though the people live in poverty, there was no desperation.”
For most of COTN’s trip, the team split into two groups. Half of the team would spend the day at the Skills Center in Barahona. There, they painted the sewing tables, taught English classes, and baked bread, much of which was distributed in Haiti.
The other half of the team journeyed to the bateyes to lay cement floors in family homes, where a floor of dirt is most common. “We’re going to try to make this a regular project in the Dominican,” said Kristen. “It’s [of value] to the families there and easy to complete in a day.”
“As meaningful as it was to give them a new floor,” Greg said, “what was more meaningful was spending the day with [the family] and getting to know them… What we thought was our primary objective became secondary… We found out that what they wanted was just to build relationships.”
And HL2 wants to continue building those relationships. In addition to the twice-yearly trips HL2 plans on taking, they also intend to sponsor ten children corporately. “They want to make it a part of their atmosphere,” Kristen said. “Hopefully, there will be many more organizations like them in our future.”
For more information on HL2, visit www.hl2.com or check them out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HL2seattle.
To get involved globally, visit our Venture Programs page.