Since 2013, Mailchimp’s Corporate Citizenship team has been working to make our hometown of Atlanta better, weirder, and more human. Today, I’d like to talk about the “better” part. For us, that means supporting organizations working to stop cycles of poverty. All year long, we partner with organizations like Literacy Action and the Gateway Center to help make their hard work possible.
But “better” becomes a special focus during our annual Martin Luther King Jr. Service Week.
For Dr. King, achieving economic justice was crucial to the work of achieving racial justice. These are complicated, layered issues—nothing you could easily solve in one week, let alone in one lifetime. But it’s important for us to do our part. So this year, our Corporate Citizenship team partnered with The Mothership, Mailchimp’s diversity and inclusion employee resource group, for a week of events to help local nonprofits working on hunger relief and housing. Together, we planned a week of opportunities for Mailchimp employees to use their volunteer hours and support these organizations providing vital services to our community.
We started the week at the Women’s Community Kitchen, which is run by Action Ministries in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, just a few blocks from our offices in Ponce City Market. The Women’s Community Kitchen provides fresh cooked meals for low-income and homeless women and children, offering them space to feel safe, valued, and part of a respectful community. Mailchimp volunteers cooked and served a meal, then sat down to eat with the guests.
