Timberland’s Fall Fest Celebrates Service, Company Culture and the Season
by Jill Holt
Fall foliage in New Hampshire is at its peak and the employees at Timberland’s global headquarters in Stratham, NH recently took a few hours to celebrate the season. If you live in New England, and in New Hampshire specifically, you know that there is something special about fall. The sky is bright, the air is crisp, the colorful leaves bring you joy and my 45-minute commute into work seems to fly by.
Eight employees who volunteer to serve on Timberland’s “Culture Club” planned this year’s Fall Fest celebration. The Club’s mission is to plan and execute small scale events throughout the year to bring a bit of fun into the workplace. Past events have included our annual Wellness Fair, The Treehouse Summer Sessions which bring live music to our outdoor patio, and our highly-anticipated Fall Fest. We named ourselves the Culture Club because culture is such a rich part of the employee experience at Timberland and we want it to be the best it can be. A big part of our culture comes from Timberland’s commitment to community service and our Path of Service™ program, now in its 26th year, which offers full time employees up to 40 paid community service hours each year.
This year’s Fall Fest was a great success, despite the remnants of Hurricane Michael dousing our campus with downpours that forced the event inside. The Club transformed the “Gorge” (aka our cafeteria) into a fall wonderland. A sea of plaid flannel along with pumpkins and puppies greeted employees when they entered the Gorge (aka our cafeteria). “Honey Talk,” a lively local band performed a mix of original and cover tunes. One employee said, “their music was so good that I left my desk to come down and listen!”
A sense of community and service shows up in everything we do, so why not infuse it into our celebrations as well? In addition offering Applecrest Farm’s locally made apple cider doughnuts and delicious Deciduous Brewing beer, we also promoted two local non-profit organizations. Gather NH works to address hunger in the Seacoast area and we partner frequently with Gather to deliver Thanksgiving baskets or to help sort donations in their warehouse. Our “entry fee” to this year’s Fest was a donation to Gather. As always, our employees did not disappoint and provided over 250 lbs. of non-perishable food donations.
We also hosted Hero Pups, which rescues dogs and trains them to support local Veterans and First Responders. Hero Pups brought two adorable and highly anticipated puppies named Liberty and Independence. Employees smothered the puppies with belly rubs and kisses and also learned how they could support Hero Pups with their service hours. Impressed by the outpouring of employee support, Laura Barker, Hero Pups’ founder, left with a list of fifteen potential volunteers. Much to everyone’s disappointment, she also left with Liberty and Independence .
Despite the stormy weather, this year’s Fall Fest allowed our employee community to come together, have fun, meet new co-workers, explore ways to serve, and celebrate “Timberland Season.”
