One firm sells flooring, one other supplies pest-control companies, and a 3rd launches rockets.
Three vastly completely different companies. However what all three have in frequent is a dedication to serving to the Area Coast neighborhood.
Great Southeast Flooring America, Slug-A-Bug and United Launch Alliance are the finalists within the Enterprise of the Yr class for FLORIDA TODAY’s 2023 Volunteer Recognition Awards, introduced by Group Credit score Union of Florida. The winner will likely be introduced on Dec. 7.
Listed here are particulars in regards to the three finalists.
Nice Southeast Flooring America
Underneath the management of Nelson Inexperienced, Nice Southeast Flooring America every year supplies $1,000 faculty scholarships to deserving college students in any respect 16 Brevard County public excessive colleges.
Inexperienced, the corporate’s proprietor and president, mentioned the trouble began in 2017 at his alma mater, Satellite tv for pc Excessive, and later expanded to excessive colleges all through the county. Faculty officers select the scholarship winners.
When the 2024 scholarships are awarded, he and the corporate could have donated $96,000 to assist graduates locally additional their schooling.
Nice Southeast Flooring America additionally has an ongoing program wherein it frequently donates to the Youngsters’s Starvation Challenge. With the acquisition of a brand new ground, the enterprise makes a donation to Youngsters’s Starvation Challenge within the buyer’s title.
Inexperienced is lively in Rotary, and the enterprise frequently serves as a serious sponsor of the group’s fundraising occasions. All through the years, Inexperienced and the corporate even have donated to native youth sports activities packages, the Brevard Zoo, the previous Foosaner Artwork Museum, Ronald McDonald Home and the Salvation Military.
The family-run, Melbourne-based enterprise was began in 1979. It now has 25 workers, together with its contract installers.
Inexperienced mentioned he appreciates the help his enterprise has obtained from prospects over time.
“These folks have been actually good to us,” Inexperienced mentioned. “It is form of good giving again to the neighborhood.”
2022 winners:Volunteers, organizations recognized at FLORIDA TODAY’s VRA ceremony
Slug-A-Bug
Slug-A-Bug President Steve Lum is taking a web page from firm founder, the late Doug Vander Poest’s, playbook, and considers serving to the neighborhood to be a high precedence. That is not only for his pest-control operations, but additionally for serving to nonprofit organizations.
Since turning into Slug-A-Bug’s president in 2005, Lum has made it a vital a part of the corporate’s mission to help charitable organizations in Brevard County that carry folks up.
Annually, the corporate redirects a portion of its income again into the neighborhood. Key beneficiaries embrace the Youngsters’s Starvation Challenge, Household Promise and Grandparents Elevating Grandchildren.
Whether or not it is direct donations, sponsorships or the corporate’s companies, quite a few organizations every year profit from Slug-A-Bug’s generosity, together with the AMIkids, Again Brevard Heroes, the Brevard Zoo, Crosswinds Youth Companies, Habitat for Humanity, Nana’s Home, Rotary and the Spoil Island Challenge.
Lum started as a pest-control technician at Slug-A-Bug in 1987, and labored his approach right into a administration place. The Melbourne-based firm, based in 1982, has 69 workers, and serves all of Brevard County and a part of Indian River County.
“I really feel that giving is a very powerful factor in life,” Lum mentioned. “The neighborhood is why we’re right here.”
Whereas Slug-A-Bug will not be an enormous company, Lum mentioned, “we will do our personal half to scale.”
Final yr’s enterprise finalists:Bobbi’s at Parkside, Community Credit Union, L3Harris finalists for Business of the Year
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance not solely launches rockets from Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station, but additionally locations a precedence on serving to the Area Coast.
“We’re proud to be supporting the neighborhood,” mentioned Ron Fortson, ULA’s director and common supervisor of launch operations. “Not solely can we serve our missions for our prospects, but additionally we’re closely concerned locally right here.”
Prior to now yr, United Launch Alliance’s native workers donated virtually 1,000 hours of volunteer work locally, together with a venture that modified the face of Emma Jewel Constitution Academy in Cocoa. ULA supplied landscaping, portray, different facility enchancment tasks and volunteer hours to enhance the skin look of the varsity, which boosted pupil and college satisfaction.
Different neighborhood efforts included work to assist the Brevard Veterans Memorial Middle, the Brevard Zoo, the Youngsters’s Starvation Challenge and the Pink Cross, in addition to numerous meals drives, and offering blankets for senior residents and homeless folks. It additionally helps science, expertise, engineering and math teaching programs locally.
Moreover, monetary donations since 2016 of $507,064 from ULA and its employees by way of United Method of Brevard impacted Brevard County by serving to these in want. The corporate has an identical program for workers who donate to United Method. For greater than 15 years, ULA has been acknowledged by the native United Method as one of many Prime 25 firms for donations.
“Now we have a excessive commonplace of excellence, and we all know that they’ve that very same commonplace of excellence,” Fortson mentioned, in discussing ULA’a alliance with the United Method. “So it is an honor to work with them right here in our neighborhood.”
ULA ― which was fashioned in 2006 by way of the mix of launch companies operations of Boeing and Lockheed Martin ― now has greater than 500 workers working within the Cape Canaveral space, and greater than 3,000 workers nationwide. Since its creation, ULA has aimed to champion a tradition of neighborhood service.
“We reside, work and play right here on this neighborhood, and so we expect it is vital that we share again to the neighborhood and serve the neighborhood as effectively,” Fortson mentioned. “We encourage some other firm on the market to become involved, to get engaged. There’s a variety of issues that this neighborhood wants, and I believe each one in all us may help serve these of us which can be in want.”
Final yr’s finalists
The 2022 winner of the Enterprise of the Yr award was Melbourne-based L3Harris Applied sciences.
Different finalists had been Bobbi’s at Parkside boutique in Cocoa Village and Rockledge-based Group Credit score Union of Florida.
FLORIDA TODAY has been internet hosting the Volunteer Recognition Awards since 1992.
Dave Berman is enterprise editor at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Berman at dberman@floridatoday.com, on X at @bydaveberman and on Fb at www.facebook.com/dave.berman.54