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.
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Mark This! Podcast: May 2025 STAR Volunteers
Host: Heather Dotchel (she/her), Corporate Communications
It's time to Mark This, 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. I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's communications team, I see and hear amazing things that are happening across our company every day. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them, building opportunity, building innovation and building community. For more than a decade, Aramark employees give back to their local communities by committing to a day of volunteering on the company's Global Day of Service, known as Aramark Building Community Day, or ABC Day.
This year is no different for most of the enterprise, but there is a special relationship in Texas that is celebrating a 10-year milestone of working together to help the community, Aramark and Buckner. Buckner International is dedicated to the transformation and restoration of their community through numerous outreach programs. Today, we are speaking with Lindsay Miller, executive director of Buckner Children and Family Services, and Kyle Wilson, general manager for one of our Healthcare+ accounts, to learn more about their work together, Aramark and Buckner's volunteer relationship and this year's project. I'd like to welcome you both to Mark This.
Lindsay, tell us about yourself and about Buckner and its mission, please.
Hey, Heather, thank you so much for that intro and invitation to be here on the podcast. Aramark has really just been such a fun group to work with, so it doesn't surprise me at all that you guys have your own podcast. About me, I am a mom to a seven-year-old and a four-year-old, and if you see me on the weekends or after work hours, I am playing sports with them in the front yard because their energy does not end. So Kyle and I had kids around the same time, they're around the same age, so I think he knows what I'm talking about here.
So in my work world, I've been at Buckner for 13 years and it's been a place that I've learned so much. Buckner's one of the oldest non-profits in Dallas, over 145 years old. We're known from our start as an orphanage, and over the decades, the work we do has changed and structure, but it's always been about delivering programs to protect children and build strong families. We want to work with families before foster care or family disintegration is ever a part of their story, and it's a fun mission to be a part of when you're working ahead of the issues even happening and I see that great work happening. And so, throughout Texas, we have programs in, I think, about 10 or 11 cities, and then seven countries internationally as well.
Okay. Let's turn to Kyle. Kyle, what is your role at Aramark, and how are you, and I know it's deeply, involved in volunteerism through the company?
Well, I am a general manager for our Healthcare+ line of service in the State of Texas, and been with Aramark for 21 years, and I am deeply involved in volunteering. Started from when I was a little kid and was really excited that when I joined my first organization, Aramark, right in college actually, that we had opportunities to volunteer. And I was so excited that when I was in a new place and in a new job, I had my community that I could work, live and play and give back to. And that hasn't changed in my entire 21 years of working for Aramark. Throughout my volunteering, I had so much fun that I actually joined as one of the Star Team leaders. So I get the privilege of serving as one of those regional community engagement leaders to make sure that we've got great programming to partner with great folks like Buckner and Lindsay, and we've watched our kids grow up over many years now, and really excited to continue this relationship going on 10 years.
So I'd like to explore the tenure relationship that our two organizations have had. Let's start with Lindsay, can you tell us a bit about it?
That sounds like a simple question, Heather, just tell us about the last 10 years. There is a lot to tell. I remember hearing about the first ABC Day because it was planned through a volunteer coordinator on our team and so I was receiving updates through her, and it's not uncommon that a corporation would want to volunteer together all in one day, however, there just was something different about the way this was planned from the beginning. Just the time and intentionality being put into the planning made it feel very purposeful.
And every year since then, it has been no different. It's been very different in content, but y'all are serious about serving and we've experienced the Star Team and DFW to be very deeply committed to serving the goals of our organization year after year. Aramark has a clear style and focus for your service, but there has always been a way to link to what our organization needs and where we could use support. Man, Kyle, so many images come to mind when I'm thinking about all the years, I'm picturing picnic tables being built, mulch being installed on the playgrounds, lots of sweating being done.
It was lots of mulch. You have painted homes preparing for single moms to move into our campus. You've landscaped flower beds outside the single moms' homes, one in particular gave more trouble than the rest. You put swings in our playground. You've painted obstacle courses along our sidewalks for the kids. You've done inspirational murals on our walls. You've done mock interviews and resume building for adults and teens. Oh, remember the Farmer's Market Healthy Living Expo? So there were live food demonstrations and tastings and cooking classes, and then I think there was a Zumba instructor there too. Yeah, I could go on and on. I didn't mention the Christmas gifts, y'all supported Christmas for over 10 years for all of our families. And then, on top of that, nutrition education. I think that started maybe, I'm guessing here, but I think in 2018 maybe at one of our sites, and then we added a second site in 2021 to do that nutrition education.
That is an amazing scope. Kyle, do you have anything to add?
Yeah. I think Lindsay hit on a lot of the fun highlights, and I think for me, the fun is there. We started out 10 years ago what I would say small. We had lots of calls and we were very intricate and purposeful in our planning, and each year, we would get to know each other more and it was like, "Hey, do you know that we do this? Do you have any interest in bringing volunteers?" And over the course of 10 years, now we have several projects going on throughout the year, it's not just one or two or three or four, it's how can we constantly be connected with Buckner? And now, we get to have fun, where we just get to call each other and say, "What do we want to do now, or what have we not done this time, or how can we improve?" Being able to every year and every month come back and see how our impact continues to grow and build that community.
And you heard from Lindsay, we didn't just do one type of project. We have truly touched from tiny little tots all the way up to grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, and everything in between, both from the community that they live in, the education that they get, the nutrition focus that they have, everything that we can possibly do to support building this brand and this program, that's what we've done, and it's just incredible to see folks that come back. I know one of my counterparts, Erin Moshier, she and I have one of the same lasting memories that when we were done with a playground and we had kids be able to come over and enjoy after one of our ABC Days and just the giant smile on not only the kids' but the parents' face made everything. I still get goosebumps to this day every time I tell the story, Erin's the same way, because it's just an incredible feeling each and every day to know that we've been part of that community.
So you're starting to jump a little bit ahead of where I wanted to go with this, Kyle, so I'm going to stick with you for a minute for the follow-up. There's a bit of impact here that you're talking about, what is the impact on the volunteers?
I think you've got two different types of volunteers. You've got the new volunteer that's coming out, they're either new to the organization or new just coming out to Buckner in general, and they're the deer in the headlights. They're coming, they're trying to see what's going on, trying to get a feeling, because we do have a really large base here of both long-standing volunteers as well as new volunteers that are coming in. So that new team member comes in and sees that level of engagement and they get hooked. They get hooked on the passion that they see from all of our Aramark team members coming out to volunteer, they get hooked on the relationships that they've seen that we've built with Buckner, they hear the story. Lindsay and her team, whenever she tells the story about Buckner or about the specific project that we're doing in either the family or the program, everybody is just choked up, there's no way of getting around it, and they just get hooked.
And then, for those long-standing community or team members that are coming out, they're hooked. They are already signed up for our projects, as soon as that email blast comes out, they're emailing me asking, "Hey, I haven't seen the sign-up list. Are we doing school backpacks, or, hey, are we doing something for Christmas? I need to go buy gifts now." They are excited about what we are doing and they're proud of it. It's incredible to be part of an organization that actually cares enough to foster and promote and drive us to be successful within our community, not just a, hey, let's go out and check the box. We are all in it, all year round.
It's true, I can vouch for it, they're all in.
Well, more importantly though, Lindsay, what has the impact been on the families and clients that you all serve?
Just impossible questions, Heather, that is an impossible question to answer thoroughly. I love hearing feedback from participants though of, I'm thinking about the nutrition education classes specifically, there are some real light bulb moments of small and big changes that come from learning about healthy living, and equally important to that is there are relationships formed in those classes and community built between families, like gathering around a table to learn about feeding your family in a healthy way, those are relationship bonds. You want to be invited to a table, that's where you make a relationship. And so, we see that happening, we see those families talking outside of those walls, and really the curriculum was the draw to forming those relationships.
From a facility and logistics perspective, every year Aramark has helped in this way, but the year that they painted six of our apartments on campus was huge for us. That year, it was after COVID, we were recovering from COVID in some ways and had some vacancies in our single mothers program, that's a residential program, and we were gearing up for a lot of new families to move in all at once. And we have a maintenance team of two individuals and there are 36 families living on the campus, and so with all the unexpected tasks they have, it usually takes them one to two weeks to fully paint an apartment.
And so, when I told them that Aramark was going to come in and paint six apartments in one day, they were like, "Yeah, sure. Good luck, good luck. We love you guys, volunteer engagement, you're great." But they didn't believe we were going to do it. And of course, Aramark, every single one of the projects we've put in front of Aramark teams, they do it faster than we ever imagined them to do it. So we proved the maintenance team wrong and it just shot us forward in our preparedness for those families. I'm very proud to say that we now have all of our apartments in full use and serving families, and at that time, Aramark was just critical in allowing us to say yes quicker when those families called needing housing and qualifying for our programs.
That is a great example and I appreciate you sharing that. Let's talk about the keys to a successful corporation non-profit relationship, let's come at this from a slightly different angle. Lindsay, what would you identify as the most important factor for that to work?
I think it's two things. I think the corporation who knows their own expertise and how they want to give back, I think that's a critical starting place, which Aramark does, we've experienced that. They're clear in what they're good at and what their intentions are as an organization in the way that they want to impact their community.
But the second thing coupled with that is that you have to take the time to listen to your community and learn what the non-profit needs or the community needs, and that's another thing that the Aramark Star Team has done really well. Several members of the Star Team, we've been the same team members working together for these last 10 years, and I know Erin specifically, she knew one of our old volunteer coordinators and misses that person, we've worked together for so long. But also, there's a desire to continue working together because they keep on learning from each other, they keep on listening so well. That Star Team is one that we look forward to meeting with, because you guys pull ideas out of us that we may not have thought of on our own. The way you guys ask questions and pull out how can we help conversations has just been a beautiful thing for us to engage in, and so we're leaning in.
So I think if those two things are in place, the organization knowing itself and then the organization listening, then impact is more easily achieved. And then, it helps that there is significant top-down leadership prioritizing a community focus for Aramark. For all of us, our plates are very full. I see how hard Kyle works and the other members of the Star Team and how much they're managing, I see that from a distance, but the common factor between them is that this matters. It matters to their leaders, it matters to their organization as a whole, and it matters to them personally, so they're willing to make time for it and I see them carving out time in the midst of their busyness.
Kyle, what would you choose to highlight?
Yeah. I think what Lindsay ended on is really where I sit, is that personal dedication to the cause that we're all in, we give it our all each and every time, we want to be part of this Star Team, and then the community partner wants to be engaged with us. I know Lindsay has the opportunity to work with a lot of different organizations, but we have fun. We work really hard, but we have a lot of fun doing that and our dedication to each other shows on each and every project that we've ever done, and it's going to continue to be like that because we have that personal dedication to the organizations that we work for and what we want to make sure that we have an impact in the community each and every day.
What was this year's Aramark Building Community Day project at Buckner, Lindsay?
This one was a fun one. It's our 10-year anniversary, we had to go big. We did a cooking on a budget class for the residents of the campus. Many of our foster families and single moms attended. Two of the teams painted the interior of one of our on-campus foster homes. So these are foster parents who can foster up to six children at one time in their home, their home gets a lot of love and use, and so it was completely repainted and looks beautiful. They gave a fresh coat of paint to each of the bedrooms and the main living area and the kitchen area. It was one of those projects where we said, "How many rooms are you telling us you can do?" And they said, "All of them," so it was an impressive feat to watch.
Another team redid the backyard of our residential program for girls that have aged out of foster care, so 18 to 24 year olds in that home. And so, there's a gazebo out there with some hanging benches, and so they really freshened up that space, they repainted our parking lot lines, they repainted our exterior fence around the property. So overall, we just got some big time refreshers in a lot of areas of campus that needed it for a while. Like I said, Aramark doesn't mess around, it's amazing what a group from Aramark can do in one day. Our team literally jokes about it, that if we're preparing to host Aramark volunteers, we better have a lot of backup projects because they just go through them quickly than anyone else we know. Efficiency and productivity is not lacking.
All right. Well, this is a bit of a follow-up then, because I think you're also skirting towards this, why is it important for large organizations like Aramark to make service a priority, Lindsay?
Well, when it comes to serving communities well, it's just a fact that non-profits and churches cannot do it alone. Large corporations like Aramark bring such strength financially, organizationally, relationally. I've told Aramark teams that they breathe wind into our sails every time they engage. I think I used the analogy one time at a welcome of a Hot Wheels racetrack. You put a Hot Wheels racetrack together, but the car can't get all the way around it unless... Sometimes it's so long, you're doing so much, that you have to add that accelerator in. You know the little thing that makes the car go faster when it whips around? And gosh, Aramark's an accelerator. Big corporations are an accelerator, they come in and they accelerate the work that we're doing with their own gifts and talents, and I just think together, our communities are served in a more holistic and stronger way.
Kyle, I'm going to turn back to you. You've touched upon this throughout our conversation here, but I want to give you a little chance to expand. What does it mean to you personally as an employee at Aramark that Aramark encourages volunteerism and giving back to community?
It means a lot to work for an organization that isn't just about your day job. We all have day jobs, we all have to get our day jobs done, but we impact our community. This organization knows the value that we have, that we have the power, we have the skillset, Lindsay talked about it earlier, that we know what we're really good at. And so, when we know when we're really good at something, we're going to go do it, we're going to offer it up, and Buckner has taken full advantage, as they should, of our knowledge and expertise.
Those cooking demos and nutritional education, I think I've probably attended about 40 of those throughout the program, and each and every one just fills your heart, to be able to see that light bulb click for a community member that didn't understand why they were struggling, and with that culinarian that's there and that dietitian that's there, helping them to understand setting those goals, that light bulb clicks, hey, if I did X... Or they'd come in and say, "I met my goal, I met my goal." It brings passion back into the organization. So when I come back to work, it gives me, it fuels me. Lindsay talked about the accelerator, it gives me that power to come back and give back to the organization that I work in and learn more to figure out how I can continue to be part of that community that we work, live and play in each and every day.
For all of the listeners, I hope that you walk away today knowing that it doesn't have to be a giant project, but get out, get involved. That first step, it could be the hardest step that you take, but get out and give back into the community, and I promise you, your cup will be overflowing and you will get hooked, and you will find the time to dedicate each and every year, each and every month, not only for yourself, but for your families as well. That's what I've been really excited to see is that a lot of our volunteers, they'll come out on a project day and they'll love it so much that they'll come back and volunteer on their own and bring their family to be part of that, and that's exactly what we want. I want you to walk away today and know that if you haven't taken that first step and you haven't done it, get out there, take that first step and be part of the community.
Want to know more about Aramark Buckner in service? Visit our newsroom on aramark.com to access more information and to subscribe to our news alerts. I'm so glad our listeners could join us again, and we thank Lindsay and Kyle for helping us to Mark This.
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