Great Neighbor: Blackfoot Walmart

Great neighbors are not only the people who live in your neighborhood. They can be your co-workers, too.

Many companies encourage their employees to volunteer their time for good causes in the community. We recently learned that the Blackfoot Walmart has gone above and beyond when it comes to donating time and money.

The Helen Walton Award award may not mean much to most of us, but to people who work at Walmart, it’s a big deal.

“We finally achieved it, and it’s such a cool feeling to know that we are the best in the company,” associate Kayla Pinkerton said.

What the award means is that last year the associates here volunteered more time than any Walmart in the country – 3,050 hours. And for every 25 hours of volunteer work, Walmart donates $250 to that organization.

“We helped the Kindergarten Center,” Store manager, Scott Jolley said. “We were able to give that school a $5,000 dollar check to purchase iPads.

Teachers say they’ve seen the kids use them, and they can just see the smiles on their faces and the happiness and the joy that it’s bringing to them.

Just this week Walmart donated $10,000 to Rollin’ for a Cause, a group that raises money to help families dealing with type one diabetes. They surprised co-founder Susan Jensen with the check.

“I was totally beside myself, I still am. It’s beyond words,” Susan Jensen said.

Associates like April Huges enjoys volunteering and appreciates the company support.

“It makes me feel really good, especially being involved with Special Olympics and getting to know different athletes with different abilities,” Huges said. “It just gives me some warm fuzzies inside.”

The people who work here don’t only help outside organizations. Kayla Pinkerton faced huge medical bills after her son became ill and had to spend time at the hospital in Salt Lake.

“This store was so incredibly generous,” Pinkerton said. “They had fundraisers and everything, and when I came back they handed me money and said, ‘Here, use it for your bills from Salt Lake,’ and I could not believe how generous they were.”

It makes general manager Scott Jolley feel good.

“That family feeling we have as a store – they just dig in and they work together and take great care of each other and the community as well, so that’s pretty neat,” Jolley said.