Page 184 - The Starbucks Experience

Leave Your Mark

In addition to their volunteerism, these partners encour-
aged Grandview to apply for a grant from The Starbucks
Foundation. The school received its first grant in 1999 and a
second grant in 2004. Caroline Krause, former principal at
Grandview, conveys, “Quite frankly, without the support of
Starbucks and others, we would not have a reading program.
We were in dire straits. We really didn’t even have the money
to be able to purchase the books we needed.”
Volunteers like Paul and Adrienn and others in Vancouver
not only learn new skills and contribute to their community,
but also take satisfaction in their contributions and have fun.
To the benefit of Starbucks, volunteerism strengthens team
identity and enhances leadership abilities.
Store manager Janeen Simmons offers an example of how
team building occurred during a Seattle-based project: “Part-
ners from a number of different downtown districts in the 169
Seattle area made a small local park our volunteer Earth Day
project. We were going to pour cement, build a big arbor, and
do a couple of other projects. What a sense of team and com-
munity we developed that day among partners who might not
have been able to be together in any other context. Everyone
was there—baristas, shift supervisors, managers, district man-
agers, our regional director, and even our regional vice pres-
ident.” By modeling volunteerism at the leadership level,
partners throughout the organization understand that com-
munity involvement is a prized value in the Starbucks culture.
Volunteerism in any organization generally doesn’t happen
by chance. It usually requires someone to take the responsi-
bility for identifying appropriate needs and organizing events.
Starbucks leadership has put a system in place to ensure that
partners actively seek ways to reach out to their neighbor-
hoods. As Starbucks executive Sandra Taylor explains, “We