By Mark Hansel
NKYTribune managing editor
The Celanese Foundation has awarded the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky (ESNKY) a $30,000 grant to improve its community-outreach initiatives.
A ceremonial check was presented to Kim Webb, executive director of ESNKY, Wednesday.
The presentation took place at ESNKY, located at 634 Scott Boulevard in Covington.
Celanese is a global technology and specialty materials company in Florence that manufactures a wide variety of products.
The Celanese Foundation is an employee-led coalition dedicated to creating opportunities for at-risk families. The employee contributions are then matched two-to-one by the foundation.
The Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky is a non-profit organization that has operated a cold-weather homeless shelter in Northern Kentucky since 2008 and a summer program for homeless since 2010. The mission of the organization is to provide shelter that is life-saving in the winter and life-changing in the summer.
Employees voted to award the money to ESNKY through their giving campaign, which allows employees to choose the causes they were most passionate about.
“Celanese is changing the outlook for employees by putting them in the driver’s seat,” Webb said. “It was each individual employee out there feeling connected and wanting to give back. They are changing the landscape of how companies are engaging their employees in the community.”
Celanese employee Carlos Santos, said a colleague, Kenny Locke, conducted surveys on the production floor of the Florence plant to determine what issues are most important to them.
“Based on the numbers that we got for that, we had a pretty good feeling about which causes we wanted to support and then we focused on fundraising activities,” Santos said. “We did everything from penny wars, to cornhole contests and also direct donation system that we set up.”
Webb said the money will go directly back to those served by the shelter.
“On average, it costs us about $17 to shelter a guest for a night,” Webb said. “It’s going to have a great impact, not only on our winter programming, but on our summer programming as we get ready to kick that off May 1. It will benefit the guys that are going to enter the summer transition program to end their homelessness and get into stable housing.”
Some of the money will also be used for bus passes and other items guests need to get into jobs and add stability to their lives.
For more information on ESNKY, click here .
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com