Page 261 - The New Gold Standard

Sustainability and Stewardship
the guests on top. We pushed the carts across Canal Street to the
highest part of the asphalt, where the streetcar runs. We walked
down Canal Street to the JW Marriott. I’m about six-foot-two,
and the water was about midthigh on me. That was the depth
on Canal Street, which was nothing in comparison to eight-foot
depths in other areas. So we went to the Marriott, and the buses
picked us up from there.” When asked if he felt a sense of pride
in helping others during that time, Micah replied, “It was just
people helping people. It wasn’t about work; it wasn’t about who
people were. It was just our Ladies and Gentlemen at their best
doing what we were born and trained to do. We all had to band
together because without each other, we wouldn’t make it through.
They were our guests and they needed us.”
This spirit to “band together” is strengthened by leadership’s
emphasis on corporate volunteerism. Sue Stephenson tells the
story of 30 employees who came in from Jamaica and Turkey to
work the summer season at one of the Ritz-Carlton hotels. She
elaborates: “At the end of their employment period, we wanted
to do something to recognize them. Should we throw a picnic
to thank them and enjoy the social benefits of that? Angella
Reid, the general manager of The Ritz-Carlton, Coconut Grove,
Miami, Florida, said no—the hotel was going to participate in
a Habitat for Humanity project in their honor. While the em-
ployees may have enjoyed the picnic, all the employees felt re-
warded by the positive community benefits and the exceptional
stories that came out of that event. That Habitat for Humanity
project created such a memory for the people who participated.”
In addition to appreciating the community-based benefits
of volunteerism, cutting-edge leaders weigh the risk of volun-
teerism against the “return value of that giving.” Walter P. Pid-
geon, author of The Universal Benefits of Volunteering: A Practical
Workbook for Nonprofit Organizations, Volunteers, and Corpora-
tions, defines “return value” by noting, “The benefit that volun-
teering provides has traditionally been thought of as the good
works given by the individual to the nonprofit organization and

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