![\"Houston](\"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/12\/Houston_cleanup_2.jpg?resize=1024%2C621\")
Kley Sippel, WeWork\u2019s Community Director in Washington, D.C., said the effort is one way to show the company\u2019s commitment to giving back to the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it\u2019s just a matter of being part of Team Human and something much bigger than myself for my company,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The call to action came from WeWork Founders Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey, who announced that they company was donating $150,000 to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund set up by Mayor Sylvester Turner.<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas is showing us what it truly means when a community comes together to help others,\u201d they wrote in an email to all the company\u2019s employees and members. \u201cBut they cannot do this alone.\u201d They urge the community to help out, pledging to match up to $100,000 in additional donations.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when WeWork staffers began brainstorming about what else they could do. Glennis Meagher, a director on WeWork\u2019s Social Impact team, was in Italy when she got the email from Neumann and McKelvey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reinforced our company\u2019s philosophy that actions speak louder than words,\u201d says Meagher. \u201cAs soon as I got back, I said: \u201cAll right, let\u2019s get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meagher says the volunteers, which included individuals from all over the company, focused on making sure they could accomplish as much as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were going to be there on the ground for 48 hours,\u201d says Meagher. \u201cAnd we wanted to make the most impact in those 48 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
WeWork partnered with All Hands Volunteers, a nonprofit that matches volunteers with the jobs that are most needed. In Houston, what was needed was \u201cmucking and gutting\u201d homes damaged by flood waters from the storm. That included ripping out floors that were warped and walls that were covered with mold.<\/p>\n
In all, 26 WeWork staffers from all different parts of the company headed to Houston. They worked for several days in temperature that regularly reached over 80 degrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done this sort of work before, so I knew what we were probably going to encounter,\u201d says McCuen. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever done it someplace so hot and humid. But you don\u2019t notice it while you\u2019re working, because you\u2019re so focused on accomplishing a very specific goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Taking a moment to stop and listen’<\/h2>\n
Nathan Lenahan, WeWork\u2019s Head of Operations for the South, says working with homeowners was heart wrenching because they were often dealing with family photos and other precious mementos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the most touching time, taking a moment to stop and listen,\u201d says Lenahan, who remembers talking with a woman who had injured her hip trying to clean out her home. \u201cTheir whole life was on the curb.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lenahan is uniquely qualified to anchor a disaster relief team, as he served for more than a decade in the Army and for the last seven has been in the Texas Army National Guard. Before he was leading WeWork volunteers in the cleanup effort, he was working on rescue teams during the worst of the storm.<\/p>\n
Besides assisting homeowners, the WeWork team also removed about two to three tons of sand and silt from the Houston Police Memorial in Buffalo Bayou Park. In the blazing sun, they lifted out the debris bucket by bucket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a call that there were about 30 volunteers down here cleaning up our memorial site, where 114 officers\u2019 names are that have been killed in the line of duty,\u201d said Ray Hunt, President of the Houston Police Officers\u2019 Union. \u201cWe came down here and were incredibly moved by everyone who was out here working so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
And WeWork helped out Jim McIngval, the owner of Gallery Furniture, who had opened up his 80,000-square-foot space as an emergency shelter for hundreds of people during the storm. They assisted the local hero \u2013 better known as Mattress Mack \u2013 in getting his warehouse up and running so he could continue to distribute free mattresses to people who had lost everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019all worked so hard you made me tired,\u201d McIngval said to WeWork staffers. \u201cY\u2019all are amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the next few months, Lenahan says that WeWork will continue to send waves of volunteers to help in the ongoing recovery efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to continue to see the same work for the next few months,\u201d says Lenahan. \u201cSome houses still aren\u2019t safe to return to. We\u2019ve still got months and months to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than two dozen WeWork employees volunteer to help after storm lashes Texas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":902,"featured_media":4000093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43903,43912],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4000090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-stories","category-employee-spotlight"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n