Team,
As we approach Labor Day on Monday, Septemeber 7, 2020, many of you may be planning to travel to celebrate the holiday. As a reminder, after traveling, it is your responsibility to complete our travel questionnaire 24 hours before returning to work. If you have not completed the travel questionnaire in advance of your shift starting, you will be required to return to your vehicle, contact your supervisor, and complete the questionnaire at that time.
As always, when traveling or gathering in groups, remember to follow local guidelines, wear a mask, and practice social distancing.
Information: As you may know, this year, due to COVID-19, we have had to postpone our 35th annual Golf Tournament. In its place, we have launched two projects to raise the critical funds lost as a result.
The first is named the Hero Campaign, and it focuses on encouraging our corporate sponsors and major donors to make a gift in support of our work. The second, which we are excited to launch on Tuesday, September 1, is called Make the Putt for Easterseals.
Make the Putt for Easterseals has two goals: 1) help raise some money, and 2) help raise some awareness of the life-changing work we do every day. The project asks people to record themselves, make a putt, donate, and nominate others to do the same. You can see the first few videos by visiting: www.maketheputt.org - I hope you will help those you support to participate and consider making a video yourself.
Get out the Disability Vote: This September we will also launch the We are the 25% marketing and advocacy campaign. The campaign will highlight the fact that 25% of the eligible voting population in America, 61 million Americans, identifies as having a disability. Yet, in 2018, just 14.3 million voters with a disability used their vote as their voice. We are committed to changing that this year while highlighting the disability community as one of the most powerful voter blocks in our nation's history.
The We are the 25% campaign has an assortment of significant initiatives that will run right up until election day. These include many public service announcements from Hollywood celebrities, billboard ad campaigns that will run in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield, a major social media presence, mailings, newspaper placements, registration drives, and get out the vote efforts.
If you don't already, please take a moment to like our Facebook and Instagram pages to keep updated, follow, and share this exciting project.
Text Messages: Finally, I am excited to share that we can now send text messages directly to your smartphone about essential updates, resources, and other information. Over the past two surveys we have conducted with staff, this has continued to be a top request. We now have the technology to provide this resource.
Starting next Tuesday, September 1, we will send the first message welcoming you to this new communication tool. You may choose to opt-out of these messages by replying, "Stop." However, I would encourage you to try it for a few months to see if you like this as an additional way to receive critical information. We hope this tool will help keep you up on everything that is happening at Easterseals.
As always, thank you for your partnership. You are changing lives every day, and I am so grateful for your effort and support.
Have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Wendy Sullivan
Chief Executive Officer