Power Home Remodeling Enacts Annual Juneteenth Initiative for Employees
June 17th, 2022 by EditorExterior home remodeler Power Home Remodeling (Power) will kick off its inaugural Juneteenth Initiative this year by hosting a three-day celebration in Atlanta, Ga. The initiative focuses on education, community service, and celebrating Black history, and will fly in employees from all across the U.S.
The company also has announced that it will honor Juneteenth — the nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States — as an official annual company holiday, and have provided recommendations to employees on how the day should be celebrated.
“Honoring Juneteenth by enacting it as a company holiday was not enough as an organization who’s been committed to fostering diversity and inclusion for years and is intentional about everything we do,” said Power’s director of cultural diversity and inclusion, Olumidé Cole. “We didn’t just want to check a box. As a people-first organization, we wanted to organize an initiative that would inspire our people and help towards mobilizing change. For Power, that meant creating an annual tradition to not only celebrate, but educate our employees and encourage them to be active and engaged citizens within the Black community, not just give them the day off.”
The Juneteenth Initiative was conceived by Power’s Black employee resource group (B.E.R.G.). Black employees and allies will gather in Atlanta this weekend to participate in a series of activities, which include, a walking tour around the city to visit different sites that memorialize our nation’s Black history, providing employees an opportunity to rediscover the places in the historical city that mean so much to the Black struggle and experience.
The three-day initiative will also include a volunteer project with local Black-owned non-profit, Margie’s House, to plant and pick vegetables that will be provided to underprivileged communities in Atlanta. Margie’s House is an organization dedicated to making a positive difference in the crusade against hunger, homelessness, poverty, violence, domestic abuse, and illiteracy in the community.
Power’s annual Juneteenth Initiative is a part of the company’s new Black History Month competition — an internal challenge that encourages employees to host outings or socials at Black-owned businesses across the country throughout the month of February. The office that generates the biggest turnout wins the opportunity to host the next Juneteenth celebration. The 2023 Juneteenth celebration will be hosted by the company’s Boston office.