July 1, 2010

Community Service Award (System): Suddenlink, Alexandria, LA

It’s rare for us to honor a company in consecutive years and even rarer when the award is for the same program. But we think the work being done at Suddenlink’s Alexandria, LA, system is deserving of multiple felicitations.

Alexandria received our award last year in recognition of its food drive for Louisiana residents. The program, Connecting to Those in Need, remains relatively straightforward but no less impressive.

The cable system broadcasts messages to the community to donate canned food at a variety of local drop-off points, such as businesses, government offices and grocery stores. After that, Suddenlink employees volunteer to collect the donated food. They also set up tables outside grocery stores where they solicit donations of canned goods and cash.

A clever touch is that Suddenlink service techs can take donations from customers as they make service calls.

Suddenlink kicked off the effort in ’07, donating five tons of food to The Food Bank of Central Louisiana. In ’09, through the hard work of employee-volunteers, the amount of food collected doubled, to 13.5 tons. The goal for 2010 is 20 tons. Don’t bet against it.

You might bet, however, that Louisiana has a target on its back. Some 80,000 residents, or 18% of the state’s 4.5 mln people, live below the poverty level, according to an ’08 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition to various social inequities in the state, the population has been hit with several natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in August ’05. The recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico only adds to the misery. A relatively safe bet? Demand for Suddenlink’s good work might be greater than ever.

"If the oil industry shuts down, 10,000 jobs will be lost in Louisiana," Suddenlink Manager of Community and Government Relations Maryce Cunningham says. This doesn’t include jobs that could be lost in ancillary industries, such as commercial fishing and tourism. "It might be years before [Louisiana] gets back on its feet," adds Suddenlink Field Systems Manager Peter "Tony" Cifelli, who runs the food collection program.

Cifelli hopes to reach this year’s 20-ton goal by adding a second shift on Saturdays at each drop-off location. Suddenlink volunteers on the first shift will collect food from 8 a.m. to noon. The second shift will be there from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. In addition, more businesses will be solicited for cash donations.

As we wrote in last year’s magazine, "This is community service that puts food on the table — it doesn’t get much more direct-to-consumer than that."