As most leaders would agree, we are only as successful as our employees are engaged. 

With the unexpected arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were plunged without warning into an unprecedented level of complexity in terms of how we live, how we work, and how we connect with our colleagues and business partners around the world.

The IMCD US organization is an essential part of our country’s supply chain. 

A global leader in specialty chemical sales and distribution, our ability to maintain operations rely heavily on the dedication and commitment of our employees, whose resilient response to the immediate changes required by public health policy and legislation required them to adapt to new ways of working literally overnight. 

Our warehouse and production employees continued to show up for work every day despite the pandemic, trusting our earnest efforts to ensure the safest environment possible for them. 

The balance of our workforce was quickly ushered out of the office with boxes full of technology; sent home to work indefinitely. “Plug it in and call us if you need help.” They did and they did it beautifully.

Practically overnight, life had changed for our employees just as it had for people across the globe. We suddenly had more people working from home than ever.

At the time, we were expecting several weeks, maybe a couple of months to be in this temporary state. 

However, it was soon clear that returning to the status quo would take longer than expected. Our employees were beginning to express wishes of returning to travel, returning to the community, returning to the gym… returning to “normal.”

To engage our employees and build momentum with something exciting and fun, IMCD US launched our “Get Fit for Hunger” summer challenge. 

Nutrition, meditation, and fitness are important components of maintaining my physical and emotional well-being. 

I wanted to share something with our employees that would allow them to focus on wellness as a team regardless of where they were across the country. 

The original idea was engagement, and with the collective input and support of our leadership team, we turned this idea into something much bigger. 

We set up a partnership with Garage Movement coaches Marty Pajek and Jacki Sulzer and with their help, we gave our employees a summer experience with a focus on healthy eating, physical wellness, and community service.

Fun, fitness and philanthropy – what an awesome way to come together as a team, to do something that is good for ourselves and even better for the communities in which we live and work. 

As one team, our employees began working to collectively focus on wellness and with a team goal of donating 40,000 meals to the nonprofit organization Feeding America, which serves Food Banks and food-insecure families across the nation. 

In acknowledgment of this National Day of Service and Remembrance, it is my honor to announce that the IMCD US Get Fit For Hunger challenge has resulted in a donation of 80,000 meals to Feeding America. 

That’s double our initial goal.

On behalf of the senior leadership team at IMCD US, I would like to thank every one of our employees for participating in this challenge. 

There has never been a more important time to come together, to support each other from a wellness perspective, and to show our communities how much we care. 

It is because of this team spirit that we have achieved our goal together as #oneIMCD. 

Special thanks to Thomas Van Valkenburgh for supporting our Get Fit For Hunger summer challenge.