Nike Teams up for Kids

The 825 volunteer slots alloted for Nike's kit-packing party filled up in three hours. Photo: Sean Pilska/Mercy Corps

Amber Mallett didn't need to be in the Gulf Coast to feel the heartbreaking impact of Hurricane Katrina. Mallett, a guest services representative at Nike's Tiger Woods conference center in Beaverton, Oregon, was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, which before the storm was still home to her father, two uncles and her 76-year-old grandmother.

Today, however, her grandmother is settling into a new home with new belongings in Alabama. During the storm, the one-story brick house in Biloxi that she and her husband had built and raised five kids in had flooded with water that reached six feet in some places. "She essentially lost everything," says Mallett. "Pictures, clothing, furniture - gone."

A few weeks later, when Mallett heard that her employer was teaming up with Mercy Corps to send backpacks loaded with school supplies to children displaced by the hurricane, the former elementary-school teacher beseeched organizers to put her to work on the event.

Mallett ended up playing a key behind-the-scenes role as more than 1,000 Nike employees chipped in to assemble and ship the lion's share of 15,000 "School Kits" to K-12 students in hard-hit areas of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Most of the school kits were assembled during a busy two days on Nike's corporate campus. On Monday afternoon, October 10, and throughout most of the following day, employees of the worldwide athletics retailer stuffed 10,000 drawstring sacks with pencils, markers, notebooks, and other materials, including a stuffed teddy bear. The bags were packed in cardboard boxes, loaded onto trucks and driven to Mercy Corps' warehouse in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where they will be distributed to children affected by the hurricane as part of Mercy Corps' Comfort For Kids program.

Mallett, whose job prevented her from stuffing bags, instead organized supplies, compiled information sheets for event managers and designed the personalized notes that volunteers signed and dropped in each backpack. "It felt great," said Mallett. "I loved the fact we had an on-campus event (to help hurricane survivors) that people could be part of. The fact that it benefitted children made it extra special."

Company's manpower and logistical expertise critical

Nike's two-day affair marked the third time its logistical know-how helped Mercy Corps speed aid to Hurricane Katrina survivors. At Mercy Corps' behest, a half-dozen employees from Nike's Wilsonville Distribution Center played a key role in boxing, loading and shipping 3,000 school kits at two earlier volunteer events.

When Nike was interested in giving more of its employees a chance to help Gulf Coast survivors, they called Mercy Corps, according to Kathy Webb, Nike's U.S. community affairs manager.

Webb says around this time each year, Nike sponsors a "community involvement" day in which employees fan out across metro Portland to deliver canned goods to hungry families, clear nature trails, read to schoolchildren or perform other volunteer work. This year, she says, "We decided the Gulf community needed us more."

And, it turned out, Mercy Corps needed Nike.

"Without Nike's generous and timely help, we simply couldn't have shipped these kits as quickly or as efficiently," says Kathy Cooke, Mercy Corps' Hurricane Katrina senior program manager. "Their logistical expertise was critical, and their willingness to assemble 10,000 kits on the Nike campus meant that many kids were able to receive school supplies three weeks sooner than planned."

Celebrities fire up "party"-goers

What Webb called Nike's "bag-stuffing party" began at 11 a.m. Monday with an all-employee gathering on the soccer field. After a musical performance by New Orleans saxophonist Devin Phillips, Gary M. DeStefano, Nike's President for US Operations, laid out the company's 90-day plan to provide 2,000 opportunities for employees to volunteer with local Katrina relief efforts. Inspirational speeches by WNBA All-Star Swin Cash of the Detroit Shock, former NBA guard and television analyst Kenny Smith and Mercy Corps founder Dan O'Neill readied the crowd for action.

From noon until 4 p.m. that day, teams of 80 employees rotated through hour-long shifts under a white tent on the patio in front of the largest building on the Nike campus. They filled bags with pens, flashlight-radios, notepads and other supplies -- some donated by Nike employees -- that were piled on top of tables arranged in a horseshoe configuration. The assembly line restarted at 9 a.m. the next morning, with fresh motivation from a surprise appearance by former WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie.

Nike employees showed their eagerness to help by signing up for all 825 volunteer slots only three hours after they were released. A call for additional volunteers on Tuesday morning yielded another 300-plus helpers. "We got a deluge of folks," Webb says.

The company contributed $65,000 for the supplies, bags and shipping. Once the kits arrive, they'll be distributed to schools by Mercy Corps teams who've been on the ground for more than a month. Some kits have already arrived, providing both tangible benefits and an emotional lift to those who have suffered from profound loss.

Mallett says she, too, got an emotional lift from seeing so many people energized about a cause so near to her heart, and from being able to contribute in her own small way. "Every little bit counts," she says.