It’s not every day that charity team building brings out patriotism but that’s what happened one day last November.  The Volkswagen Group Of America, Inc gathered at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, VA.  The event was our charity team building workshop called Mission: Military Care.

Not all charity team building workshops involve bikes.

Certainly, our most popular charity team building workshop is Bike-A-Thon™.  Surely you’ve heard of it, or at least the concept.  Corporate groups get together for team building activities with a charitable mission: to build bicycles for local kids.  It’s fun and it’s great for team building and for building bridges with the community.
But we have other workshops that benefit other groups, too.  Take the one chosen by Volkswagen Group Of America, Inc.  They chose Mission: Military Care.  This workshop has participants working on team skills while they put together care packages for members of our military stationed overseas.

This workshop finishes up with a video…

While the bicycle building workshop concludes with kids racing into the workshop space to receive their bicycles in a heartwarming ceremony, Mission Military Care ends on a different note altogether.
Now that many of our troops have come home from Iraq, they don’t appear in the nightly news as often anymore.  During our day-to-day work week it’s easy to get bogged down with work and life.  It’s easy to forget that many of our military are stationed overseas, still serving their country in remote and foreign parts of the world.
That’s who this workshop is for- the packages go to brighten the day of a military service man or woman who misses home, friends and family.  The packages contain person care items, gifts, or during the holiday season- lots of seasonal gifts that bring cheer!
The end of each Mission: Military Care workshop we like to show the “Mission Military Video” to the participants.  It really ties thing together and reminds them who will be receiving the care packages they just created.
Well, this group may work for a German car company but they’re 100% American!  The video stirred up some patriotic feelings and many of the participants were brought to tears.  It was very moving.
Now, we don’t create our workshops hoping people will cry, but we were honored to have connected with this group in such a way.  If it helps support our overseas military service men and women, we’re all for it, and so were the Volkswagen people.