Producing Confidence
Since 1947, our unwavering commitment to values, safety, and delivering exceptional results for our clients has stood the test of time. Tune in as we explore the latest industry trends, safety practices, and career insights in the ever-evolving energy sector. Learn more at producingconfidence.com.
Producing Confidence
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.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Producing Confidence Podcast. I'm Samantha McGee, and today we are talking about Danos Works, the volunteer program of the Danos 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 Recruiting Manager. Paige, Damien, thank you for joining me. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So we'll just dive right into it. Can you give us an overview of what Danos Works is and how the volunteer program operates?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so um Danos Works is actually a portion of the Danos Foundation where our employees are able to volunteer at any organization that is near and dear to their own heart. So basically any organization that you know they find valuable in our community, they are able to volunteer their time at those organizations. And the Danos Um Foundation, the Works portion, will pay$10 for every hour worked. So if you work 10 hours, that's$100 for that organization. The only stipulation is that these organizations do have to be considered$0.1 and they have to be publicly held. We do have some organizations that are$0.1 that are privately held, but we are no longer able to give to those. So we do have to make sure that they are publicly held as long as they're a 501c3. Um then any organization of your choice, you can volunteer at any of those. So like I said,$10 for every hour that you work and the payout comes beginning of the year, and you're able to give that check to an organization that you know is near and dear to your heart.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. And so it's kind of like the foundation is saying if an organization is important to you or employee, then it's important to us, and we want to support that. And a lot of times it's things that people are doing already anyway, right? Correct. And so why is volunteering such an important part of the Danos culture and values?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So the Danos purpose is to honor God and develop great people to solve big challenges for our customers 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 our Lord. And by doing that, that just kind of goes to show that we are honoring God and that portion of our life. Um, you know, just being out there and helping people in our communities, um, where, you know, sometimes people go through rough times. Their communities go through rough times with hurricanes and natural disasters, and just us being out here and able to, you know, just trying to dedicate our time to our communities to help out people when they're in need. Each individual person is able to live out the Danos values.
SPEAKER_01:So the Danos name is known throughout the community for being involved, no matter how big or how small the opportunity is. It's in our vision, like Paige said, it's important to live out that purpose. It's a big part of the vehicle that drives the success for the company and its employees.
SPEAKER_02:Great. And I'll just backtrack Damien is joining us. He is a recruiter, uh recruiting manager at Danos, but he is also one of the employees who is uh utilizing Danos Works the most. He is logging a ton of hours and he does then does a lot of work in the community, but then he goes ahead and logs it back. So, Damien, you want to go ahead and tell us what inspires you to volunteer in your community?
SPEAKER_01:So I'm from the South of Hoose community. I've moved down to Baya, up to Baya, 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 be able to volunteer in the way that folks framed my youth. So it's big youth sports is big in our area. So at the time when I was a kid, there was a huge group of adults that were together and formed leagues and just made our youth sports experience very, very positive. So at some point, I got to the point where I wanted to be able to give that back. And you don't know the impact of early life impact on maybe some of the kids that you're spending time with. I could remember my first coach, my first teacher, and oddly enough, my first coach's daughter is actually coaching my daughter right now. So you just see how that how those those things can be passed down. That that's pretty much my inspiration there. I do spend a lot of time there. I've been involved in that league for 13 years. I've been lucky enough to have been the president for 11 of those years. We've seen our league grow from 300 to 600 over the past six years, and it's uh one of the better leagues in in our area. I've taken a lot of the uh of the values and the visions when I got to Dan Offs and instilled them into that program, and that has changed our league dramatically in just the way that we operate and the way that we're efficient, and we're able to expand our league and get more 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 the Danos Works program, we're able to provide the Cut Off Youth Center that check because I know financially they struggle. So we're able to ease some of that struggle every year through multiple volunteers.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. So is it to basket basketball league? Is that right? Correct. Okay, very cool. And so can you share maybe a personal story or highlight from a recent event where Dano's employees maybe made a big difference? I mean, obviously you just shared that about the Cutoff Youth Center, but I don't know if you had anything else.
SPEAKER_01:Paige, you want to go?
SPEAKER_02:No, you can go.
SPEAKER_01:So it's not too recent, but it's the first thing that really comes to mind. After Hurricane Ida, we actually went to a church in Golden Meadow and about 30 staff members, field employees, their families cooked. We got there pretty early in the morning to be able to cook for lunch. Everybody had their job. Everybody did, everybody was there for a reason. You could it was just a different feel that day because the storm had passed maybe, maybe four to five days. Or oh no, it was it was longer than that because we couldn't get into town for a couple weeks. So right when things started getting going, we got together and there were owners, like I said, field employees, their families, there were kids running around. It was it was cool to have some normalcy again because I was out of town at the time I was living in Lafayette and coming back home was was big for me and to be able to provide the opportunity for meals for some folks that were in need. And I can remember I'll I'll name him. Marty Terrebonne was there, and Marty lost his whole house in that storm. And he was there doing everything he possibly could, right, for other people. And in that time, there was a huge rainstorm right when we were about to start serving. So obviously we had tents set up due to the sun and whatnot, and we kind of knew the weather was coming. But we made a line where folks didn't have to get out of their vehicles to get wet to get their food. It wasn't safe to put people in their tent to drive a car in their tent. So folks had to literally stand in the rain to be able to provide the plate much to these individuals. And I can remember Marty was the lead person there in the rain, no umbrella, just working and working and working. And that it I got goosebumps right now just talking about it. I always that that'll be in my in my brain forever.
SPEAKER_02:That gives gives me all the feels, as I like to say, too. And you know, I feel like I've heard before after tragedy and times of disaster, look for the helpers. And that's really what what this group is doing, and um, you know, be in the hands and feet of Jesus, serving the community. So that's great. Thank you for sharing. So, Paige, how do employees go ahead and track their hours that they volunteer? And um, are there any incentives or what's how does that all this work?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so whenever you um volunteer for an organization, the first thing you're gonna do after you volunteer, um, and I mean you can do it per volunteer activity, or you can some people do like to wait till the end of the year. Um, they just kind of log their hours in a notebook, and then at the end of the year they go and log all their hours. I do like to um enforce, you know, people doing it per volunteer activity just because it makes it easier on them remembering to volunte to log those hours, and then me also, if it's an organization that has to be verified in our system, it gives me a little bit of time throughout the year to go through all those organizations and verify them. Um, but all you have to do, we in Thelma and in PRC, on the left-hand side of the webpage, there will be a tab that says Danos Foundation. You'll just click the Danos Foundation tab, some options will pop up, and then you'll just click once you're on that page, it's self-explanatory. You'll put the organization name, the date that you um log those hours, how many hours did you log, and then just make sure that you put that organization name. If it's not an organization that's already verified and in the system, you'll just put other and then make sure in the notes section that you put the name of the organization, and we will have to have a tax ID and a declaration letter to make sure that we can go into the system and verify it. It's the same in PRC performance side, FELMA for Danos. And then as far as incentives go, for each employee, every year we've always done um once you log 10 hours, you do get a t-shirt. This year we are still kind of sort of doing that, but a lot of our employees are the same, you know, they all they log hours every year. So we used to have three different colors, and most of our employees have all the colors. So we are looking into maybe doing um a couple different things, some hats, maybe um just some different foundation merchandise um that we can give, other than just a normal t-shirt, the volunteer t-shirts.
SPEAKER_01: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:Love that.
SPEAKER_00: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:Yeah, absolutely. And so at the end of the year, say December is when you start tallying everything together.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. Hours are need to be logged um by December 31st. Anything after that, unfortunately, we have to be able to make sure everything can be 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 your hours in before December 31st, then you're good.
SPEAKER_02:And then so in January sometime or the beginning of the next year is when you go ahead and distribute checks.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, usually around February. Um, usually it takes us um, you know, at least two weeks in January to have everything verified, and then usually about two to three weeks for accounting because they write individually write every single check. So um, you know, that can be time consuming with their normal day-to-day. So um it usually does take about two to three weeks um to get those checks. So usually about beginning to mid-February, we have them distribute them and we like for people to send us pictures.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so that's one of the things that I love is that so then you give it to the employee, right? And that employee gets to go give it to their organization.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. Um, yep, we distribute the check to the actual employee who volunteered the hours, and then they go to the organization to deliver the check. Um, and we do like to get a picture just so that we can have, you know, some photos of the impact that we're making around the community.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Always send pictures, please. And Damien, I know um you were kind of nodding your head. Is how does that impact you being able to go and give that check to your organization?
SPEAKER_01:It's almost a sense of self-fulfillment. And Paige does a great job of organizing some of these um opportunities. I was gonna say transactions, but it's opportunities for the folks that are receiving the money or the check to come into HQ, give them an op, give them an opportunity to see exactly you know what we do and and where we work, or you could go on their site and be able to provide that to them uh on on their side as well.
SPEAKER_02:Great. And so are there any partners within the community or nonprofits that kind of stand out as especially meaningful collaborators or partners with the Danos Foundation?
SPEAKER_00:Second Harvest Food Bank is one that we do a lot of dealings with. In the past, we've actually had um some teams at Dan OS do just volunteer opportunities with the Second Harvest Food Bank. So they'll go to different sites and do food distributions. I'm pretty sure they just finished their warehouse over in Homa. So hopefully within the near future, we'll have some more opportunities to go into their warehouse and help, you know, whether it's unloading things off of trucks or loading trucks to get it to different destinations. Um, hopefully we'll have some more opportunities there. And also another one that kind of comes to mind is Bags of Hope. Um, we've had Bags of Hope at our office a few times. You know, the the food situation in our area for kids can can be a little dicey sometimes. So, you know, we do really take pride in being able to help the children of our community make sure that they have a meal over the weekend when they're not getting food. Because, you know, sometimes school is the only meals that they're getting. And to be able to provide them food just to last them the weekend so they come back to school on a Monday really does just warm my heart. So we do um have done some bag food bagging um opportunities here at Dan Hall's HQ so that, you know, we send the foods back with Bags of Hope and they deliver it to the school so that the kids um have food to take home for the weekends.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's one of my favorites. And both Bags of Hope and Second Harvest Food Bank are also Dan Hall's Gives grant recipients. So it's always great to see that, you know, come full circle to be able to partner with these groups that we're also giving funds to.
SPEAKER_01:So talking about the the Dan Hall's grant recipients, earlier this year we had an opportunity for a lot of those organizations to come into headquarters and we got to learn a lot about what they do, what their goals are, who they're helping specifically. And we were able to meet the actual people working on site to hear their stories. And through that, my team, my recruiting team, was actually we got involved with the Firm Foundation. And we were able to, which is it's a um a day shelter for homeless people in the HOMA area. And we were able to get together with them, provide a meal for just one one day, and you get to help out for that day, and we were able to kind of combine that and uh have a team building experience. And then recruiting specifically, uh, we're connected through uh different partnerships with some of these nonprofits that are designed to help individuals into the workforce. These organizations provide mentorship training with different individuals that might not have the education or the experience that's needed. They equip them with those skills, the training certificates, and we're able to try to get those folks some opportunities to get to work and have a career.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. It's really, you know, putting the Danos Company purpose and combining that with the foundation, and that's you know, always something that makes you feel good and really drives home the purpose again. So, do we have any goals for expanding or evolving the Works Volunteer program in the coming year?
SPEAKER_00:So, as far as some goals, so I know maybe this was maybe two years ago, we did um one of our goals, which I would love to bring back, was just more department involvement. So I know in the past our Danos accounting team went to the St. Francis Vegetable Garden and worked as a team to, you know, plant things and harvest um the vegetables out there. Or I know the safety team has done food distributions. The executive team has gone to the Dulac Community Center and did food distributions. The IT team has gone to Beacon Light Baptist Church and done food distributions. So I would love to see more teams just kind of come together, um, you know, get to know each other outside of just your normal office space and be able to do some good in our community. So if we could, you know, try and make that a goal for the year, hopefully we can get um between performance energy and danos, you know, just some more team activities, you know, take an hour lunch break and head out to the vegetable garden or, you know, any organization around here, go cook for like Damian that his group did with the firm foundation. I feel like that just it makes a huge impact and people love to see Dan O's employees out and about.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and not even I'm sure we could even expand that to not just locally, but to the Denos locations outside of South Louisiana, you know, in Houston and West Texas and South Texas, you know, that would be there's always opportunities out there. I'm sure, you know, it's not just local.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Because our Houston crew, they do love to go to the furniture bank.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so to piggyback off of what Paige was saying, the leadership team had an opportunity to go to Hope Ministries in Baton Rouge. They received a grant from the Joe Burrow Foundation, where we're able to pack 600 individual bags of food for different folks. And don't think people quite understand some of the difficulties that folks have. And Paige mentioned that earlier, just being able to provide a meal. And their leadership team actually sat us down for about 30 minutes and talked to us about their process, their goals, and what they do, and they actually get broken into from time to time. They come into their facility and the windows are broken. One time the the president of the organization was telling us that they had uh a hole uh garden hose hanging in the window with the hose on and it was flooding their building. And they own they help folks specifically in a in a that area code. And they have a walk-in grocery store. 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-house shopping area. And that was you, I guess at the end of the day, you just don't understand some of the difficulties that people have in providing food for themselves and their families.
SPEAKER_02:It kind of puts things into perspective, right?
SPEAKER_01:Very, very, very quickly.
SPEAKER_02:All right, so switching gears a little bit, how can employees who haven't participated yet get started and maybe find opportunities that fit their interests and schedules?
SPEAKER_00:So as far as getting started, I mean, it's pretty easy. If you have any organization that 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 only thing is that it has to be 501c3 publicly held. But I mean, even if you still volunteer your time there, like we still have people who volunteer their time for organizations that are not verified and they know that it's not verified, but they still log the hours because they still just like for you to see, you know, they're still helping their community. Um they're still out there volunteering their time, even if they're not going to get anything in return to give to that organization. They still just enjoy what they do, 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 bit of research. Or some of the organizations that I know um, you know, that we've partnered with before. I know that they're always looking for volunteers. So I can always get in touch with those organizations or get you in touch with those organizations to see, hey, how can I help out? You know, do you need any help? Um, have a team, or it's just me. And we can always go from there. Um, I do think that the website still has a couple of organizations that I know we've partnered with in the past. So you can always look on the website as well.
SPEAKER_02:Under the events section of the website.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. So you can always look there and see if there's anything that um, you know, interests you as far as volunteering. And you can always get with me and we'll see how we can get you started. Damien, do you have any suggestions for people who might want to get involved?
SPEAKER_01:It took me a little while to understand the program. So I think education, educating yourself within the program of what you're doing, you may already be doing something that can be long. I think it took me a while to understand that. Unfortunately, I probably missed three years of service hours, but I'm trying to make up for it. So anything that you're doing in a volunteer area or with a different organization, that may be 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 do a lot of volunteer work and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that. Putting yourself in the same shoes as some of these individuals or just being able to help mentor folks goes a long, long way in in life itself.
SPEAKER_02:So we'll kind of wrap it up with this. What's one message you would like every uh employee of the Danos companies to take away about the importance of volunteering through works?
SPEAKER_01:Just get involved. You never know how the time you spend with volunteering can impact an individual or an organization. On a personal level, helping folks gives you a sense of purpose and fulfillment while also improving your mental well-being. I love that.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. Um, just to kind of piggyback off of what Damien said, you know, there are organizations out there that, you know, whenever you live your day-to-day life and you don't understand that there are people out there who don't live the same day-to-day life as you. You know, they struggle with food insecurities and feeding their family and feeding their children. And, you know, people have a certain sense of pride, and you know, not everybody wants to come out and say, you know, I'm ha I'm I'm struggling. So just to even go to something as simple as giving food boxes to people that literally come in a car line. You don't have a clue who they are, you never, you might never know who they are. But just being able to put food in their trunk, you might not say a single word to them. Um but they're gonna go home and be able to put that food in their fridge and know that they can go for another week. So just get out there because you never know who what organizations need help, what kids need help, what adults need help, volunteering that time and even not even necessarily need help. Because Damien, um, you know, he volunteers coaching basketball. And, you know, that's keeping those kids off the streets and you know, giving them a sense of, you know, a dad figure that they might not have at home, but he might not even know that. Get out there, volunteer your time and and log those hours because we have tons of money to give.
SPEAKER_02:Great. Well, thank you both for joining us. I know this is gonna be super helpful to our employees and non employees alike about learning a little 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:Thank you. Thank you.
