Travelers is deeply committed to the communities it calls home and part of that commitment includes creating safe, resilient and thriving neighborhoods. As an insurer, Travelers sees the devastation that natural disasters can have on entire towns and understands the importance of disaster response and recovery. Those two elements came together in the work Travelers completed in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, to help restore hope in a community that had been devastated by a Category 4 hurricane.
The overall goal was to help a community in need, and the goals related to the promotion of this project were aimed at creating greater awareness of the ongoing challenges faced by residents in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
[IM1]Is it helpful to add another item related to letting our employee know that we were making a commitment to help a devastated community that represents the company’s belief in supporting not only our customers but others in times of need? Basically, an internal goal?
After witnessing the devastation caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, Travelers set out to help a community in need. Through the company’s nonprofit partner All Hands and Hearts, Travelers learned about Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, where Hurricane Maria first made landfall.
All Hands & Hearts connected Travelers with Yabucoa’s mayor, who told the company just how much restoring a baseball field would mean to the community. From there, Travelers worked with the municipality and All Hands & Hearts to identify a field and transform it into a new baseball diamond and playground. Travelers employees then joined community members and All Hands & Hearts volunteers to make it happen — building everything within two days. By providing the children with a safe place to play, Travelers helped to restore a sense of normalcy and hope after the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
In addition to the restoration of the field, Travelers donated new baseball equipment, including bats, balls, batting helmets, catcher’s equipment and gift bags for the children, solar-powered lanterns for families, and $50,000 for the municipality to use as needed.
The promotion of these efforts helped create greater awareness about the challenges that Puerto Ricans still faced months after Hurricane Maria made landfall and the help they needed to overcome those challenges.
A unique aspect of this project was the seamless coordination among a corporate funder, a community and a nonprofit. In many instances, companies will make donations of goods or funds to communities without first asking the need. In this case, Travelers sought the input from the community to determine what type of donation would be most impactful and then donated not only the funding necessary, but also the volunteer efforts of its employees to get the work done.
From a promotional perspective, we secured national and local media coverage, garnering nearly 50 placements totaling more than 58 million impressions. Social media posts yielded over 400,000 impressions, 2,700 likes and engagement from organizations such as the NY Mets, local news outlets and insurance associations – helping to raise awareness related to the cause.