Building relationships with our community — one can at a time

Our core value of Putting People First encourages us not only to take care of each other and our providers, it also encourages us to take care of our communities. That’s why, we decided to take on the Salt Lake County Health Department’s Foodstruction challenge to design and build a sculpture entirely out of healthy food items.

“Events like this give our people a chance to make a difference to our community — and have fun while doing it,” says Rachel Klemens, culture director at CHG Healthcare.

This year, seven local businesses, including CHG Healthcare, SelectHealth, and University of Utah, participated in the challenge. The sculptures were put on display at local libraries where visitors could vote on their favorite design. After the voting, all the food used to create the sculptures was donated to the Utah Food Bank, providing more than 13,000 meals for Utahns facing hunger.

Food for thought

Making a sculpture entirely out of food is no small feat. CHG team members worked with an engineer to create a design that represented our people-centric culture in a way that was easy for first-time builders to construct. The group decided on a design that included a heart ripple, signifying how our putting-people-first efforts extend beyond ourselves and into our communities.

“With generous donations from our people, we were able to gather the 1,500 cans needed to create the sculpture,” Rachel shares. “And the best part is knowing that all of that is being donated to the food bank after the event.”

With 1 in 8 Utahns (and 1 in 6 Utah kids) not knowing where their next meal will come from, food drives like this are vital to helping the food bank stock their shelves during a time when they need it most.

And although our design didn’t take top honors (it’s hard to beat a replica of a helicopter equipped with moving propeller blades), the group had fun working together to build something that would have a big impact on people in our community.

“I love helping out in any way that I can,” says Amy Zacher, associate quality management coordinator at CHG. “You never know when you’ll need to ask for a helping hand. I want to be there for others. This was a simple way of putting smiles on other’s faces, making them feel good, and in return, I feel good by helping.”

Learn more about the other ways we give back to our community in this blog post.