A few of the Gandhi Day volunteers at the TROSA site.

Fuqua organized many volunteer opportunities including ones with:

Durham Food Bank

Habitat for Humanity

TROSA

CAARE Inc.

Triangle Rails to Trails Conservatory

More details on two of the projects:

Durham Food Bank

By Diana Yarmovich

When I learned of this opportunity, I was excited to participate and saw it as a great way to give back to the Durham community in honor of Gandhi and his lasting influence.

I spent the day volunteering at the Durham Food Bank. Right away, the food bank provided an overview of their operations to the 11 volunteers. The food bank serves 6 counties and over 93,000 people.We had a chance to ask questions about the logistics and partnership organizations (the business side) and the impact on the families and individuals (the personal side). Then we got down to business! We packed over 1,500 pounds of pasta. We had a steady operation going — labeling bags, filling bags with dry pasta, tying pasta bags, and redo! Just imagine a box of 500 pounds of dry pasta — and think that we emptied 3 of them!

After our morning of service, all of the volunteers from the different sites came back to Fuqua for a lunch that featured a presentation and discussion about our day of service and Gandhi’s influence.

For me, it provided a chance to step out of the Fuqua bubble and put things in perspective. In my business school world, I often forget about how fortunate I am and spending my morning at the Durham Food Bank was a great reminder to not only think about how lucky I am, but also think about how impactful this organization is on so many people’s lives.

TROSA

By Dipesh Shah

I spent the morning working at the TROSA site. TROSA is an innovative, multi-year residential program that enables substance abusers to be productive. The organization helps recovering individuals by providing comprehensive treatment, work-based vocational training, education, and continuing care. I chose TROSA because I utilized their moving services earlier this year when I moved apartments in Durham, and I was SO impressed with the level of service from the wonderful folks who work with this organization. Therefore, I knew this would be the place for me to “be the change.”

As part of our work, we pressure washed and pretreated a large portion of the outside building. TROSA was going to paint an exterior wall but it needed a little tender, love, and care before painting. It was a tough job in muggy weather, but and my fellow 20+ team members and I did a great job. We got the wall as clean as we could.

This volunteer experience was awesome. It was great to take a break from all the busy things that we get involved in and actually take a moment and make a small impact on the world.

More photos on Facebook.

Earlier this month, Fuqua’s Board of Visitors arrived on campus for its semi-annual meeting. The event boasted a star-studded roster, but perhaps one of the most notable members was Proctor & Gamble CEO and Chairman Robert McDonald. Mr. McDonald leads a company that, aside from being a frequent employer of Fuqua grads, shares the sense of ethics, teamwork, and personal development that have distinguished Fuqua.

Graciously, Mr. McDonald volunteered a few minutes of his time following the BOV meeting to chat about his experiences in Prof. Joe Leboeuf’s Managing Human Assets course. A man who shepherds 129,000 employees is certainly credentialed to speak on such matters, and he offered answers to a wide variety of questions. Two of us were present in the class, and have our own opinions about the session.

Mike’s Thoughts

What struck me most about Mr. McDonald was his highly personable manner. I suppose this shouldn’t have been surprising. Most CEOs probably have this trait in mass quantities. But there was something about the dialogue between this high-powered CEO and a classroom full of students that suggested the learning was going in both directions. Mr. McDonald showed legitimate interest in what we were saying. I reasoned that this was important for him. After all, it’s a changing business world, with today’s employees shackled with more and more concerns to complement their ever-increasing skill sets. We, at Fuqua, are supposed to embody that change.

Mr. McDonald depicted a unique culture within his enterprise, one whose upper ranks were populated exclusively from within. A main tenet of the class, to date, has been that culture can be directly responsible for the success of the firm, and that the lack of an identity can be a cause of failure. The CEO’s words certainly echoed that notion. He cited the emphasis on individual initiative as a driver of new, successful products, and that the indoctrination of culture, from an early age, promoted tranquility within the firm that most employees appreciate. But as he reminded us, not every culture is for everyone, and recruiting is of the utmost importance in finding employees who will fit, and make P&G’s concerns their own concerns.

Diana’s Thoughts

Business school has exposed me to a wide range of incredible people and opportunities and hearing Bob McDonald speak was no exception. As Mike mentioned above, when Mr. McDonald spoke to our class, he seemed genuinely interested in hearing our questions and providing us with honest responses. He worked his way to the top during his 30 years at P&G, held many different roles and responsibilities and partook in a 2-year training process to become CEO. In my shoes, I am a first-year student who is about to reenter the workforce for my summer internship. A C-level role is a faraway thought now, but Mr. McDonald highlighted the important parts of leadership and showed us how we can use them at Fuqua and in our future careers.

Mr. McDonald’s Words of Wisdom:

• Prepare yourself to be the best leaders possible to help transform the world
• The scarcest resources are good leaders
• Be open to learning from different cultures
• When you promote from within create tools and training programs to make that process successful
• Find people who want to make a difference and have impacts on other people’s lives
• Manage your relationships
• Don’t let somebody else define success for you