NorLand Kids Club

Each summer, NorLand puts on a BBQ for the whole company. This year, due to the unexpected COVID-19, the BBQ had to be postponed. A few fine folks at NorLand thought that just because the BBQ wasn’t going to take place, didn’t mean we couldn’t do something for our NorLand family. So they started to brainstorm how they could do a COVID-friendly, family-oriented activity...and that's how the NorLand Kids Club was born!

Nicki Wilson and Brooks Patterson were the main culprits who thought about how to execute and make this happen. Anna Cullingworth designed the logos and posters, Melanie from Stores gathered the gift cards and prizes, and Michelle McCrea - Gord McCrea’s wife - crafted all the buffs for the children and the multitude of volunteers needed to stuff the envelopes.

The Kids Club is a way for NorLand associated kids of all ages (from 1 – 17) to get involved, share their stories, and spark creativity - all while doing something fun and safe!

When kids sign up, their info (email, age, family, etc.) is sent to Nicki who then sends out a “welcome package” that includes their membership card, a welcome note, a buff that can be used as a mask, or as some creative children have used as a tube top (Ha!), a coloring book & crayons, some jelly beans, and an activities list. Nicki mentioned wanting to have something that would arrive in the mail for the kids, “because it’s so rare that kids receive mail these days, and it can be a fun surprise for them.”

The NorLand Kids Club has already had some great responses and some awesome videos of kids being excited to open their package. 

The activity list has a number of COVID friendly activities to promote creativity. Activities include: 

  • Building a house of cards,
  • Coloring one of the pages in the coloring book,
  • Writing a letter on what your relative does at NorLand and,
  • Other activities

Activities completed are to be sent in (via photo) to the Kids Club Email, where Nicki tracks them all. There are prizes that have been donated by suppliers to entice the kids to do more activities. Prizes include gift cards, bikes, etc.

The NorLand Kids Club has gotten a lot of traction and packages have been sent as far as Georgia and New Zealand. They’re hoping to continue it, enrolling more and more kids all the time. They are up to 76 kids currently, with capacity for more! They are also thinking of ways to keep it interesting and will be updating activity lists every quarter, so the kids can have lots of chances to win prizes and learn new skills.

This initiative is truly in line with our NorLand Values of Teammates Get Treated Like Family. Teammates are our family, we want to show how much all of the NorLand family means to us. While normally we do that with the BBQ, this year we wanted to show our family (and yours) that even though we can’t be together, we’re still thinking of you all, and hoping everyone is keeping healthy and enjoying the smalls things.

 

Above photo submitted by Geoff Smith.