NJMEP YEAR-END SALES MEETING FOSTERED TEAM BUILDING WITH A PURPOSE

NJMEP Team Building Exercise Culminates in Gifts for Children of Military Servicemembers

NJMEP SALES MEETING HOSTED AT CLIENT TRAINING CENTER

The NJMEP team gathered together in early December for its year-end sales meeting, but this time, instead of coming together at the Cedar Knolls office in North Jersey, the team was to meet at the ABCO Systems training center in Carlstadt.

ABCO Systems is a leader in warehouse automation and design, serving New Jersey’s manufacturing and e-commerce needs for over 30 years. As an NJMEP client and automation resource, they happily extended an invitation to NJMEP to host the year-end sales meeting, where team building and collaboration would take place in their 10,000-square-foot training center!

MANUFACTURING CARES INITIATIVE GOAL MET

One of the key highlights of the NJMEP year-end sales meeting was the announcement of achieving the organization’s goal of raising $20,000 in donations for the Manufacturing CARES Food Drive, which benefits the Community Foodbank of New Jersey (CFBNJ)—a cause that NJMEP has proudly supported for the past ten years. For every dollar donated to the CFBNJ, three meals are provided to the nearly one million food-insecure New Jerseyans, many of whom are children. These efforts, with the support of NJMEP’s clients and partners, have provided over 60,000 meals to those in need this year!

TEAM BUILDING WITH A PURPOSE

Throughout the day’s events, there were multiple opportunities and activities for team-building, outside of the normal sales meeting format, the last of which pitted fifteen separate teams of NJMEP employees against one another building, inspecting, and testing pedal go-karts. Each team took their time opening and assembling their go-kart before finally trading it with another NJMEP team for inspection. Little did the NJMEP team know, but these go-karts would actually be donated to children through the New Jersey Army National Guard Family Program—by way of good ole’ Saint Nick!

The New Jersey Army National Guard (NJARNG) Family Programs team assists National Guard soldiers and their families with resources.  Through the organization’s eight Family Assistance Centers throughout New Jersey, a Soldier and Family Readiness Specialist is available to aid NJARNG families. Diana Becker, the Soldier and Family Readiness Specialist with the Morristown Armory, assisted NJMEP and Santa Claus with the coordination of finding fifteen lucky military children who would receive go-karts. These lucky kids aged 3-7 years old, each have at least one parent who is a New Jersey Army National Guard soldier in northern New Jersey.  The soldiers represented the following NJARNG units: HHB 3-112 Field Artillery (Morristown), 102nd Cavalry Troop A and C (Dover and Hackettstown), 143rd Transportation Company (Picatinny). The parents, soldiers, NJARNG administrators, and especially the children were all incredibly grateful to receive these go-karts!

It was the perfect feather in the cap as 2023 was the year of focusing on assisting New Jersey Veterans and their families with obtaining industry training certificates, services intended to help combat veteran unemployment and underemployment in New Jersey by providing meaningful career opportunities to our nation’s military veterans. For more information on how to obtain training certificates as a veteran or as a family member of a veteran, please visit the NJDMCC information page.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM NJMEP

Seeing the kids’ faces light up when they saw their pre-built go-karts was the perfect culmination of the day’s events. The kids were so excited that they took to the warehouse floor in their new rides and took them for a test drive as Santa coordinated the rest of the children’s gifts. It was a humbling reminder of what the season is all about. Happy Holidays from the NJMEP Team!