BlueCross employees Heidi Stone and Kelly Sheets paint a wall mural in one of the classrooms.
A member of Team Blue, BlueCross’ employee volunteer program, helps out in one of the classrooms.
BlueCross employees work on assembling a piece of playground equipment at the Children’s Home/Chambliss Shelter.
BlueCross employees work together to assemble playground equipment for the Children’s Home/Chambliss Shelter.
Over the past two years, the Children’s Home/Chambliss Shelter’s funding has seen its funding levels drop from $400,000 to $197,000, making it difficult to maintain the wide variety of activities and amenities they offer to the children served there. That is where BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee stepped in.
The BlueCross BlueShield Tennessee Community Trust donated $10,000 to the shelter to help with funding needs. Additionally, more than 100 BlueCross employee volunteers, known as Team Blue, spent five days and a collective 436 volunteer hours at the shelter in June. Volunteers performed various jobs around the Chambliss Shelter’s campuses -- such as painting, landscaping and cleaning – to help boost the organization while also reducing its costs.
“The Children’s Home/Chambliss Shelter is a wonderful facility that provides opportunities many kids wouldn’t otherwise have,” said Kathy Bingham, manager of the BlueCross Community Trust. “We are focusing the power of Team Blue to give the children served by this organization a big lift with our efforts.”
In total, the Community Trust contributed $60,000 to children’s shelters across Tennessee. Additionally, 54 Team Blue volunteers in Jackson, Johnson City, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville also pitched in and contributed 195 volunteer hours to the shelters.