Cortland Employees Work Together to Help Feed the Homeless

For the community manager of Cortland Bellevue in Nashville, Tennessee, Cortland's annual week of doing good deeds in the markets where it operates offered the chance to improve her city.
 
Kayla Shaver and Cortland employees participated this month in the apartment giant's week of volunteerism, with employees across the country working outside the office to combat homelessness and clean up and improve local communities. For Shaver and her Nashville colleagues, it meant hiking 2.5 miles to clean trails and remove invasive plants to keep pathways clear.
 
The program, dubbed Cortland Commitment Week, is a companywide initiative that involved thousands of employees in 16 U.S. markets from Phoenix, Arizona, to Charlotte, North Carolina, working to help local communities by fighting homelessness and this year supporting 25 partner organizations through volunteer opportunities. 
 
 In Orlando, Florida, Cortland employees sorted 82,101 pounds of food at Second Harvest Food Bank. In Tampa, Florida, workers partnered with Forgotten Angels, which helps young adults too old to be in the foster care system acquire skills for a better life, to build a butterfly garden to be named Cortland Gardens.
 
 In Atlanta, the Cortland design, maintenance and construction teams kicked off renovation work at the downtown facility of SafeHouse Outreach, which helps transition homeless people from the streets of Atlanta to self-sufficiency.
 
“We recognized there was a broader opportunity to use our associates’ professional talents in maintenance, construction and design to transform and renovate Safehouse,” said Rene Gomez, Cortland’s vice president of facilities innovation, in a statement. And, as Shaver put it on LinkedIn, getting outside to do good with coworkers meant "having a blast!"