Mark This! is a podcast in which we peel back the corporate curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs, and projects that are happening all over Aramark’s varied lines of business. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them--building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.
Mark This! Podcast, Episode 7, Community Partnerships 
Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications 
Guest: Jami Leveen, Vice President for Community Partnerships 
Heather Dotchel (00:01): 
It's time to Mark This, a podcast in which we peel back the curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs, and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business. 
(00:14): 
I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's Communications team, I see and hear about all of the amazing things that are happening across our company. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.  
Mark this provides a space in which we can explore these initiatives with our audience. Jamie Leveen is Vice President for Community Partnerships for the Aramark Enterprise. In her daily life, she oversees strategic partnerships with nonprofits, year round, volunteer opportunities and charitable contributions. Our 10th annual day of service, also known as Aramark Building Community Day, is scheduled for April 27th, near the end of National volunteer month. 
(01:02): 
Jami, welcome to the podcast. Please tell us a little bit about yourself, as well as more detail regarding your responsibilities with the company. 
Jami Leveen (01:11): 
Great. Thanks, Heather. I'm so happy to be here. I have been with Aramark since June of 1999, which seems incredible to say out loud. When I started with the company, I was at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and then spent the next 17 years in a wide variety of roles with sports and entertainment. I transitioned to the community relations team in 2016 and now currently lead that team in community relations and public affairs. We spend the vast majority of our time leading the efforts as you detailed above, with volunteer services a key focal area, but also charitable contributions in building relationships with our nonprofit partners. And all of this is aligned with Aramark's overall mission to do great things for our people, partners, communities, and planet. It's a great role. I selfishly think I have the best job in the company. Others may think their jobs are better, but I really, really love the work that we do in this space. 
Heather Dotchel (02:19): 
Well, knowing the high regard that we all hold our own positions in generally, I think that's a pretty significant claim and I'm glad to hear it. I want to dig a little bit in why is it important for an enterprise like Aramark to have a dedicated community partnership or community relations group? 
Jami Leveen (02:38): 
Well, I think it's important for a couple of reasons. One is that the work that we do is directly tied to our mission and is such an integrated part of the Aramark culture. To have a dedicated team that can help facilitate some of the things that we bring to life every day is important because there's so much opportunity. As a service company, we care deeply and passionately about serving others. Typically, people think of that in terms of the clients that we work with every day and the hospitality, food service facility services that we bring. But it really extends to everybody we encounter. That could be our partners and our employees, our service partners, vendors, and the communities at large. And as a large company, we also have an ability to give back and to show a deep commitment to doing so across the organization. Activities like that could happen organically, but there is something about having a dedicated team that can help align the work that we do and make sure that it is tying back up to the overall Aramark mission, but also creating opportunities so employees can get involved throughout the year. 
Heather Dotchel (03:53): 
And related to all of that, because I do think that that integration right into the fabric of the enterprise and the priority that having dedicated staff to it highlights is important. That community service gets incorporated into our culture, but how do we assure that this work isn't just performative? 
Jami Leveen (04:13): 
Well, I think at the heart of the company, we're a hospitality organization, and as you said in our DNA, it's in us to give back. We do that every day, but giving back to the community and to those in need are serving as an extension of what we do every day, so I think it's really important to have opportunities throughout the year where we can actually do what we say we care about. And so, this is an opportunity through volunteer service and through some of the other activities that we generate throughout the year to actually show that it's not just what we say, but it's what we do. And I think Aramark people in general are some of the most generous people I've ever had a chance to work with. 
Heather Dotchel (05:05): 
That's nice to hear. And that's certainly been my experience. Can you share some employee experiences that resonated with them and also with you when they shared? I recently was at the Broadstreet mission, thanks to the work that you do, and our group felt so privileged to help and have the opportunity to do so at work. You must hear these stories every day. 
Jami Leveen (05:28): 
I do, and it is one of the best parts of the job is that I get to talk to employees throughout the organization and hear how much the work that they're able to do through volunteering and service means to them, to their clients, to the people that we give back to. We've had a couple of different touchpoints. Recently, we had a Aramark Young Professionals 40 under 40 awards that they do annually and collect information from the individuals that are being recognized. And one of the questions is, "What is your favorite memory at Aramark?" And several of them, I think more than half reported Aramark Building Community Day, which is our global day of service. 
(06:13): 
And I know we joke that it's the best day of the year, but I actually do hear that from people. And I just know that when you have a chance to go out and participate in a service project, and I was there at the Broad Street ministry, and I agree, just seeing it, feeling it, being part of it, not only do you learn about the work that the organization that we're supporting does and the people that we are helping to support, but I think it's a comradery building among the team. It's really powerful to get there in person and see it happen. 
 
(06:48): 
I know on my first ABC day, I went to Minneapolis to one of our longtime partners, and we did so much in one day. We had over 100 volunteers. We built a garden, we painted, we assembled picnic tables, we did murals, we refreshed the interior space, we hauled more mulch than I thought was humanly possible in a day. And everybody was exhausted at the end, but we laughed a ton. We had a really great time. It's such a memorable visual reflection of the day, and it just makes you feel good. And so, I think people remember how you make them feel more than anything, and it's really hard to participate in a service project without walking away feeling in some way transformed. And I think it's also particularly meaningful for employees to know that they're working for a company that facilitates this. And it's not just a personal endeavor, which a lot of people volunteer outside of work, but I think it's also an important part of the Aramark culture to know that the company supports these types of activities. 
Heather Dotchel (08:02): 
It's a big year for Aramark Building Community Day this year. It's our 10th anniversary. Can you share the scope of what will be taking place on April 27th? 
Jami Leveen (08:13): 
Sure. We're really excited that it's the 10th annual ABC day, and we will be hosting a number of large projects that we call signature projects to distinguish them from some of the other projects that we have going on throughout the day. But in four cities, Philly, Dallas, Denver, and Toronto, we will be hosting between 50 and 150 employee volunteers for about six or seven hours. We work with a nonprofit called Care Force that's part of the City Year team who comes in to help us facilitate these larger scale projects. And we will do activities from about 9:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. And they will involve anywhere from large mural paintings, some assembly of materials such as shelving or picnic tables. We'll do some community gardening. We will do some workshops and other cooking demonstrations, and we'll work with a cross section of employees from across that region. 
 
(09:22): 
For example, in Philadelphia, we will have employees that come from our headquarters location, but we will also have employees that come from accounts all over the city, and it represents from pretty much any full-time employee all the way up to leadership at the senior most levels and across a really wide array of functions. We'll have people from the operation, but we'll have accounting, and IT, and HR, and marketing and all folks will join. 
(09:52): 
And then in addition to those for larger projects, we will have nearly 100 smaller projects happening across the globe. In addition to the US, we have projects planned in Northern Europe, in South America, in Asia, and they will all be doing similar types of projects that rain from donation drives to kit assemblies to smaller gardening projects, and they could involve three employees or 30 or more. It's an interesting way to create as much activity as we can. And we support that through community relations with resources. We have grants that are available for the nonprofits, and we help the wonderful, wonderful employees who volunteer to be project leaders and then give them the tools so they can be successful in recruiting their colleagues and friends and coworkers to join them as volunteers. 
Heather Dotchel (11:02): 
What do we look for in these kinds of projects? How can we make the most impact? 
Jami Leveen (11:07): 
When we evaluate an opportunity, there's a matrix of things that we consider including how well it aligns with Aramark, and are we working with an organization that is caring about the same issues and opportunities that Aramark does? We look at what we can give back to them. Sometimes it's time, sometimes it's volunteer hours, sometimes it's resources. It could be in kind contributions, it could be funding. And then we look at what we can do, which is coming to the fore with the hands-on volunteer opportunities. It's a very simple overlay of care give due, which we use to assess every opportunity. And then once we have determined those general sorts of alignment between the nonprofit that we're going to work with and Aramark, we really focus on three core outcomes in the work that we're doing, so that it's aligned as well with the things that Aramark has the greatest connectivity to and the things that are most relevant to our business. 
 
(12:22): 
We look at are we increasing access to food and nutrition education? Are we looking at developing employment success, which we do with a lot of education and workforce readiness activities? And are we being good stewards of the planet at large with some environmental sustainability projects? That dual lens of care give due, and then the three types of service projects that we do, we will often sit down with the nonprofit leadership and the Aramark team and talk through, what's really the most important thing that you need? I think it's important when we are assessing types of projects that we don't as a large company, go to a small nonprofit or even a large nonprofit and say, "Hey, we want to do this thing. Can you help us?" I think it's important that we take the position of saying, "We would like to do something. How can we help you?" 
(13:23): 
And then work with the nonprofit to flush out what makes the most sense, what do they need, what would be most beneficial to their members or the community that they're serving? And then work backwards from that in some ways to come up with a good project and figure out is it going to be engaging for our employees? Is it going to be beneficial to the community at large? And is it going to be fun and safe, and meet all the requirements that we have in terms of creating a really great transformative experience on both ends? 
(14:02): 
The volunteer opportunities and other activities we do in the community space is just a part of a much broader commitment to creating opportunities to take care of people on planet that's part of our ESG or environmental social and governance platform at large. And if we go back to the Aramark mission of being rooted in service, we do great things for our people, our partners, our communities, and our planet. And they're also interconnected. It's all part of a much bigger picture and the overall mission and goals of the company, and it's just such a nice way to bring people in, teach them a little bit about what's happening in the community, and create opportunities for them to participate and feel part of a bigger process. 
 
(14:58): 
And I think it humanizes too, some of the reasons why we care about some of the things that are part of ESG and at Aramark, we call our ESG platform, Be Well, Do Well. And I think the name says so much, but it through the community work really humanizes what we mean when we say that. And we give to each other, we give to our communities and we're giving back at large. And I think that's a really important and special part of what we do and an embedded component of the Aramark culture. 
Heather Dotchel (15:38): 
Jami, thank you for joining us today. If you want to learn more about community partnerships at Aramark, please visit our newsroom on aramark.com to access more information. And as always, I'd like to thank our listeners for tuning in to Mark This.