EP 12: How Danos WORKS Turns Volunteer Hours into Real Community Impact

We explore how Danos WORKS turns employee volunteer time into direct funding for nonprofits and why service sits at the core of the Danos culture. 

Recruiter Paige Boudreaux and Recruiting Manager Damien St. Pierre share practical steps, partner stories, and moments that remind us why showing up changes lives. Learn more at theseedsofgiving.com.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Producing
Confidence Podcast.
I'm Samantha McGee, and today weare talking about Danos Works,
the volunteer program of theDanos Foundation.
Joining me are Paige Boudreaux,Danos Works Chair and Recruiter
at Performance Energy Services,a Danos company.
And we also have Damien St.
Pierre, uh Danos RecruitingManager.
Paige, Damien, thank you forjoining me.

(00:21):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 (00:22):
All right.
So we'll just dive right intoit.
Can you give us an overview ofwhat Danos Works is and how the
volunteer program operates?

SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
Yeah, so um Danos Works is actually a portion of
the Danos Foundation where ouremployees are able to volunteer
at any organization that is nearand dear to their own heart.
So basically any organizationthat you know they find valuable
in our community, they are ableto volunteer their time at those

(00:50):
organizations.
And the Danos Um Foundation, theWorks portion, will pay$10 for
every hour worked.
So if you work 10 hours, that's$100 for that organization.
The only stipulation is thatthese organizations do have to
be considered$0.1 and they haveto be publicly held.
We do have some organizationsthat are$0.1 that are privately

(01:13):
held, but we are no longer ableto give to those.
So we do have to make sure thatthey are publicly held as long
as they're a 501c3.
Um then any organization of yourchoice, you can volunteer at any
of those.
So like I said,$10 for everyhour that you work and the
payout comes beginning of theyear, and you're able to give
that check to an organizationthat you know is near and dear

(01:35):
to your heart.

SPEAKER_02 (01:35):
I love that.
And so it's kind of like thefoundation is saying if an
organization is important to youor employee, then it's important
to us, and we want to supportthat.
And a lot of times it's thingsthat people are doing already
anyway, right?
Correct.
And so why is volunteering suchan important part of the Danos
culture and values?

SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
So the Danos purpose is to honorGod and develop great people to
solve big challenges for ourcustomers and our communities.
So with the Danos Works program,it kind of hits on several parts
of that.
Um so to honor God, you know,God has chosen us to be
servants.
So we are out here serving ourLord.
And by doing that, that justkind of goes to show that we are

(02:15):
honoring God and that portion ofour life.
Um, you know, just being outthere and helping people in our
communities, um, where, youknow, sometimes people go
through rough times.
Their communities go throughrough times with hurricanes and
natural disasters, and just usbeing out here and able to, you
know, just trying to dedicateour time to our communities to
help out people when they're inneed.

(02:37):
Each individual person is ableto live out the Danos values.

SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
So the Danos name is known throughout the community
for being involved, no matterhow big or how small the
opportunity is.
It's in our vision, like Paigesaid, it's important to live out
that purpose.
It's a big part of the vehiclethat drives the success for the
company and its employees.

SPEAKER_02 (02:53):
Great.
And I'll just backtrack Damienis joining us.
He is a recruiter, uh recruitingmanager at Danos, but he is also
one of the employees who is uhutilizing Danos Works the most.
He is logging a ton of hours andhe does then does a lot of work
in the community, but then hegoes ahead and logs it back.
So, Damien, you want to go aheadand tell us what inspires you to
volunteer in your community?

SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
So I'm from the South of Hoose community.
I've moved down to Baya, up toBaya, two different places in
the in my my 40 years of life,and our community is big on
having each other's back.
So it's important to me to beable to volunteer in the way
that folks framed my youth.
So it's big youth sports is bigin our area.

(03:34):
So at the time when I was a kid,there was a huge group of adults
that were together and formedleagues and just made our youth
sports experience very, verypositive.
So at some point, I got to thepoint where I wanted to be able
to give that back.
And you don't know the impact ofearly life impact on maybe some
of the kids that you're spendingtime with.

(03:56):
I could remember my first coach,my first teacher, and oddly
enough, my first coach'sdaughter is actually coaching my
daughter right now.
So you just see how that howthose those things can be passed
down.
That that's pretty much myinspiration there.
I do spend a lot of time there.
I've been involved in thatleague for 13 years.
I've been lucky enough to havebeen the president for 11 of
those years.

(04:16):
We've seen our league grow from300 to 600 over the past six
years, and it's uh one of thebetter leagues in in our area.
I've taken a lot of the uh ofthe values and the visions when
I got to Dan Offs and instilledthem into that program, and that
has changed our leaguedramatically in just the way
that we operate and the way thatwe're efficient, and we're able

(04:37):
to expand our league and getmore volunteers in because it's
a strictly volunteer league.
Every coach, every board member,it's it's all volunteer work,
and we're able to through theDanos Works program, we're able
to provide the Cut Off YouthCenter that check because I know
financially they struggle.
So we're able to ease some ofthat struggle every year through
multiple volunteers.

SPEAKER_02 (04:58):
Awesome.
So is it to basket basketballleague?
Is that right?
Correct.
Okay, very cool.
And so can you share maybe apersonal story or highlight from
a recent event where Dano'semployees maybe made a big
difference?
I mean, obviously you justshared that about the Cutoff
Youth Center, but I don't knowif you had anything else.

SPEAKER_01 (05:13):
Paige, you want to go?

SPEAKER_02 (05:14):
No, you can go.

SPEAKER_01 (05:15):
So it's not too recent, but it's the first thing
that really comes to mind.
After Hurricane Ida, we actuallywent to a church in Golden
Meadow and about 30 staffmembers, field employees, their
families cooked.
We got there pretty early in themorning to be able to cook for
lunch.
Everybody had their job.
Everybody did, everybody wasthere for a reason.
You could it was just adifferent feel that day because

(05:35):
the storm had passed maybe,maybe four to five days.
Or oh no, it was it was longerthan that because we couldn't
get into town for a coupleweeks.
So right when things startedgetting going, we got together
and there were owners, like Isaid, field employees, their
families, there were kidsrunning around.
It was it was cool to have somenormalcy again because I was out
of town at the time I was livingin Lafayette and coming back

(05:56):
home was was big for me and tobe able to provide the
opportunity for meals for somefolks that were in need.
And I can remember I'll I'llname him.
Marty Terrebonne was there, andMarty lost his whole house in
that storm.
And he was there doingeverything he possibly could,
right, for other people.
And in that time, there was ahuge rainstorm right when we

(06:17):
were about to start serving.
So obviously we had tents set updue to the sun and whatnot, and
we kind of knew the weather wascoming.
But we made a line where folksdidn't have to get out of their
vehicles to get wet to get theirfood.
It wasn't safe to put people intheir tent to drive a car in
their tent.
So folks had to literally standin the rain to be able to
provide the plate much to theseindividuals.

(06:38):
And I can remember Marty was thelead person there in the rain,
no umbrella, just working andworking and working.
And that it I got goosebumpsright now just talking about it.
I always that that'll be in myin my brain forever.

SPEAKER_02 (06:51):
That gives gives me all the feels, as I like to say,
too.
And you know, I feel like I'veheard before after tragedy and
times of disaster, look for thehelpers.
And that's really what what thisgroup is doing, and um, you
know, be in the hands and feetof Jesus, serving the community.
So that's great.
Thank you for sharing.
So, Paige, how do employees goahead and track their hours that
they volunteer?

(07:12):
And um, are there any incentivesor what's how does that all this
work?

SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
Yeah, so whenever you um volunteer for an
organization, the first thingyou're gonna do after you
volunteer, um, and I mean youcan do it per volunteer
activity, or you can some peopledo like to wait till the end of
the year.
Um, they just kind of log theirhours in a notebook, and then at
the end of the year they go andlog all their hours.
I do like to um enforce, youknow, people doing it per

(07:40):
volunteer activity just becauseit makes it easier on them
remembering to volunte to logthose hours, and then me also,
if it's an organization that hasto be verified in our system, it
gives me a little bit of timethroughout the year to go
through all those organizationsand verify them.
Um, but all you have to do, wein Thelma and in PRC, on the

(08:00):
left-hand side of the webpage,there will be a tab that says
Danos Foundation.
You'll just click the DanosFoundation tab, some options
will pop up, and then you'lljust click once you're on that
page, it's self-explanatory.
You'll put the organizationname, the date that you um log
those hours, how many hours didyou log, and then just make sure
that you put that organizationname.
If it's not an organizationthat's already verified and in

(08:22):
the system, you'll just putother and then make sure in the
notes section that you put thename of the organization, and we
will have to have a tax ID and adeclaration letter to make sure
that we can go into the systemand verify it.
It's the same in PRC performanceside, FELMA for Danos.
And then as far as incentivesgo, for each employee, every

(08:44):
year we've always done um onceyou log 10 hours, you do get a
t-shirt.
This year we are still kind ofsort of doing that, but a lot of
our employees are the same, youknow, they all they log hours
every year.
So we used to have threedifferent colors, and most of
our employees have all thecolors.
So we are looking into maybedoing um a couple different
things, some hats, maybe um justsome different foundation

(09:05):
merchandise um that we can give,other than just a normal
t-shirt, the volunteer t-shirts.

SPEAKER_01 (09:11):
I got a quick pro tip on that.
Anytime you log your timesheet,go log your hours.
That's what I test.
That's what I try to do.

SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Love that.

SPEAKER_00 (09:19):
Yep, because we don't want you to forget to log
your hours and we don't want,you know, to have any hiccups
towards the end of the year.

SPEAKER_02 (09:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
And so at the end of the year,say December is when you start
tallying everything together.

SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
Yep.
Hours are need to be logged umby December 31st.
Anything after that,unfortunately, we have to be
able to make sure everything canbe verified, get with accounting
to cut the checks.
So anything after December 31st,we aren't able to, you know,
include for that year.
But as long as you get yourhours in before December 31st,

(09:49):
then you're good.

SPEAKER_02 (09:50):
And then so in January sometime or the
beginning of the next year iswhen you go ahead and distribute
checks.

SPEAKER_00 (09:55):
Yep, usually around February.
Um, usually it takes us um, youknow, at least two weeks in
January to have everythingverified, and then usually about
two to three weeks foraccounting because they write
individually write every singlecheck.
So um, you know, that can betime consuming with their normal
day-to-day.
So um it usually does take abouttwo to three weeks um to get

(10:16):
those checks.
So usually about beginning tomid-February, we have them
distribute them and we like forpeople to send us pictures.

SPEAKER_02 (10:24):
Yeah, so that's one of the things that I love is
that so then you give it to theemployee, right?
And that employee gets to gogive it to their organization.

SPEAKER_00 (10:30):
Correct.
Um, yep, we distribute the checkto the actual employee who
volunteered the hours, and thenthey go to the organization to
deliver the check.
Um, and we do like to get apicture just so that we can
have, you know, some photos ofthe impact that we're making
around the community.

SPEAKER_02 (10:45):
Absolutely.
Always send pictures, please.
And Damien, I know um you werekind of nodding your head.
Is how does that impact youbeing able to go and give that
check to your organization?

SPEAKER_01 (10:54):
It's almost a sense of self-fulfillment.
And Paige does a great job oforganizing some of these um
opportunities.
I was gonna say transactions,but it's opportunities for the
folks that are receiving themoney or the check to come into
HQ, give them an op, give theman opportunity to see exactly
you know what we do and andwhere we work, or you could go

(11:16):
on their site and be able toprovide that to them uh on on
their side as well.

SPEAKER_02 (11:20):
Great.
And so are there any partnerswithin the community or
nonprofits that kind of standout as especially meaningful
collaborators or partners withthe Danos Foundation?

SPEAKER_00 (11:29):
Second Harvest Food Bank is one that we do a lot of
dealings with.
In the past, we've actually hadum some teams at Dan OS do just
volunteer opportunities with theSecond Harvest Food Bank.
So they'll go to different sitesand do food distributions.
I'm pretty sure they justfinished their warehouse over in

(11:50):
Homa.
So hopefully within the nearfuture, we'll have some more
opportunities to go into theirwarehouse and help, you know,
whether it's unloading thingsoff of trucks or loading trucks
to get it to differentdestinations.
Um, hopefully we'll have somemore opportunities there.
And also another one that kindof comes to mind is Bags of
Hope.
Um, we've had Bags of Hope atour office a few times.

(12:12):
You know, the the food situationin our area for kids can can be
a little dicey sometimes.
So, you know, we do really takepride in being able to help the
children of our community makesure that they have a meal over
the weekend when they're notgetting food.
Because, you know, sometimesschool is the only meals that
they're getting.
And to be able to provide themfood just to last them the

(12:35):
weekend so they come back toschool on a Monday really does
just warm my heart.
So we do um have done some bagfood bagging um opportunities
here at Dan Hall's HQ so that,you know, we send the foods back
with Bags of Hope and theydeliver it to the school so that
the kids um have food to takehome for the weekends.

SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
Yeah, that's one of my favorites.
And both Bags of Hope and SecondHarvest Food Bank are also Dan
Hall's Gives grant recipients.
So it's always great to seethat, you know, come full circle
to be able to partner with thesegroups that we're also giving
funds to.

SPEAKER_01 (13:07):
So talking about the the Dan Hall's grant recipients,
earlier this year we had anopportunity for a lot of those
organizations to come intoheadquarters and we got to learn
a lot about what they do, whattheir goals are, who they're
helping specifically.
And we were able to meet theactual people working on site to
hear their stories.
And through that, my team, myrecruiting team, was actually we

(13:27):
got involved with the FirmFoundation.
And we were able to, which isit's a um a day shelter for
homeless people in the HOMAarea.
And we were able to get togetherwith them, provide a meal for
just one one day, and you get tohelp out for that day, and we
were able to kind of combinethat and uh have a team building
experience.
And then recruitingspecifically, uh, we're

(13:48):
connected through uh differentpartnerships with some of these
nonprofits that are designed tohelp individuals into the
workforce.
These organizations providementorship training with
different individuals that mightnot have the education or the
experience that's needed.
They equip them with thoseskills, the training
certificates, and we're able totry to get those folks some

(14:08):
opportunities to get to work andhave a career.

SPEAKER_02 (14:11):
I love that.
It's really, you know, puttingthe Danos Company purpose and
combining that with thefoundation, and that's you know,
always something that makes youfeel good and really drives home
the purpose again.
So, do we have any goals forexpanding or evolving the Works
Volunteer program in the comingyear?

SPEAKER_00 (14:28):
So, as far as some goals, so I know maybe this was
maybe two years ago, we did umone of our goals, which I would
love to bring back, was justmore department involvement.
So I know in the past our Danosaccounting team went to the St.
Francis Vegetable Garden andworked as a team to, you know,
plant things and harvest um thevegetables out there.

(14:50):
Or I know the safety team hasdone food distributions.
The executive team has gone tothe Dulac Community Center and
did food distributions.
The IT team has gone to BeaconLight Baptist Church and done
food distributions.
So I would love to see moreteams just kind of come
together, um, you know, get toknow each other outside of just

(15:11):
your normal office space and beable to do some good in our
community.
So if we could, you know, tryand make that a goal for the
year, hopefully we can get umbetween performance energy and
danos, you know, just some moreteam activities, you know, take
an hour lunch break and head outto the vegetable garden or, you
know, any organization aroundhere, go cook for like Damian

(15:34):
that his group did with the firmfoundation.
I feel like that just it makes ahuge impact and people love to
see Dan O's employees out andabout.

SPEAKER_02 (15:40):
Yeah, and not even I'm sure we could even expand
that to not just locally, but tothe Denos locations outside of
South Louisiana, you know, inHouston and West Texas and South
Texas, you know, that would bethere's always opportunities out
there.
I'm sure, you know, it's notjust local.

SPEAKER_00 (15:54):
Absolutely.
Because our Houston crew, theydo love to go to the furniture
bank.

SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Uh so to piggyback off of what Paige was saying,
the leadership team had anopportunity to go to Hope
Ministries in Baton Rouge.
They received a grant from theJoe Burrow Foundation, where
we're able to pack 600individual bags of food for
different folks.
And don't think people quiteunderstand some of the
difficulties that folks have.
And Paige mentioned thatearlier, just being able to

(16:19):
provide a meal.
And their leadership teamactually sat us down for about
30 minutes and talked to usabout their process, their
goals, and what they do, andthey actually get broken into
from time to time.
They come into their facilityand the windows are broken.
One time the the president ofthe organization was telling us
that they had uh a hole uhgarden hose hanging in the

(16:42):
window with the hose on and itwas flooding their building.
And they own they help folksspecifically in a in a that area
code.
And they have a walk-in grocerystore.
The volunteer gets with them,they get X amount of canned
goods, X amount of frozen foods,and they have baskets.
It's almost like an in-houseshopping area.
And that was you, I guess at theend of the day, you just don't

(17:04):
understand some of thedifficulties that people have in
providing food for themselvesand their families.

SPEAKER_02 (17:09):
It kind of puts things into perspective, right?

SPEAKER_01 (17:12):
Very, very, very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 (17:13):
All right, so switching gears a little bit,
how can employees who haven'tparticipated yet get started and
maybe find opportunities thatfit their interests and
schedules?

SPEAKER_00 (17:22):
So as far as getting started, I mean, it's pretty
easy.
If you have any organizationthat you enjoy or someone has
told you about, or you know,anything that's near and dear to
your heart, you can volunteer.
Like I said earlier, the onlything is that it has to be 501c3
publicly held.
But I mean, even if you stillvolunteer your time there, like

(17:44):
we still have people whovolunteer their time for
organizations that are notverified and they know that it's
not verified, but they still logthe hours because they still
just like for you to see, youknow, they're still helping
their community.
Um they're still out therevolunteering their time, even if
they're not going to getanything in return to give to
that organization.

(18:04):
They still just enjoy what theydo, enjoy their time.
If you're looking for anything,you can always email me, shoot
me an email, give me a call.
Um, I can always do a little bitof research.
Or some of the organizationsthat I know um, you know, that
we've partnered with before.
I know that they're alwayslooking for volunteers.
So I can always get in touchwith those organizations or get
you in touch with thoseorganizations to see, hey, how

(18:25):
can I help out?
You know, do you need any help?
Um, have a team, or it's justme.
And we can always go from there.
Um, I do think that the websitestill has a couple of
organizations that I know we'vepartnered with in the past.
So you can always look on thewebsite as well.

SPEAKER_02 (18:39):
Under the events section of the website.

SPEAKER_00 (18:41):
Correct.
So you can always look there andsee if there's anything that um,
you know, interests you as faras volunteering.
And you can always get with meand we'll see how we can get you
started.
Damien, do you have anysuggestions for people who might
want to get involved?

SPEAKER_01 (18:54):
It took me a little while to understand the program.
So I think education, educatingyourself within the program of
what you're doing, you mayalready be doing something that
can be long.
I think it took me a while tounderstand that.
Unfortunately, I probably missedthree years of service hours,
but I'm trying to make up forit.
So anything that you're doing ina volunteer area or with a

(19:15):
different organization, that maybe already in our system.
So definitely check it out.
Check out what Paige mentioned,and you may already be doing
something.
And uh I'm I'm telling you, I doa lot of volunteer work and I'm
very grateful for theopportunity to be able to do
that.
Putting yourself in the sameshoes as some of these
individuals or just being ableto help mentor folks goes a

(19:35):
long, long way in in lifeitself.

SPEAKER_02 (19:38):
So we'll kind of wrap it up with this.
What's one message you wouldlike every uh employee of the
Danos companies to take awayabout the importance of
volunteering through works?

SPEAKER_01 (19:47):
Just get involved.
You never know how the time youspend with volunteering can
impact an individual or anorganization.
On a personal level, helpingfolks gives you a sense of
purpose and fulfillment whilealso improving your mental
well-being.
I love that.

SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
I agree.
Um, just to kind of piggybackoff of what Damien said, you
know, there are organizationsout there that, you know,
whenever you live yourday-to-day life and you don't
understand that there are peopleout there who don't live the
same day-to-day life as you.
You know, they struggle withfood insecurities and feeding
their family and feeding theirchildren.
And, you know, people have acertain sense of pride, and you

(20:25):
know, not everybody wants tocome out and say, you know, I'm
ha I'm I'm struggling.
So just to even go to somethingas simple as giving food boxes
to people that literally come ina car line.
You don't have a clue who theyare, you never, you might never
know who they are.
But just being able to put foodin their trunk, you might not
say a single word to them.

(20:46):
Um but they're gonna go home andbe able to put that food in
their fridge and know that theycan go for another week.
So just get out there becauseyou never know who what
organizations need help, whatkids need help, what adults need
help, volunteering that time andeven not even necessarily need
help.
Because Damien, um, you know, hevolunteers coaching basketball.

(21:08):
And, you know, that's keepingthose kids off the streets and
you know, giving them a senseof, you know, a dad figure that
they might not have at home, buthe might not even know that.
Get out there, volunteer yourtime and and log those hours
because we have tons of money togive.

SPEAKER_02 (21:25):
Great.
Well, thank you both for joiningus.
I know this is gonna be superhelpful to our employees and non
employees alike about learning alittle bit more about Downhouse
work.
So remember to log those hours,take photos when you're when
interacting with your groups,and and just keep solving big
challenges for our communities.
Thanks again.

SPEAKER_00 (21:44):
Thank you.
Thank you.