Four Belk associates, including one at the Gainesville store, have been named winners of the 2016 Belk Award of Excellence, the company’s highest honor given to associates for community service and job performance. The winners were honored at a luncheon hosted by Belk in Charlotte last Tuesday.
Each received a $500 cash prize, along with an additional $1,000 to present to the charity of his or her choice.
The 2016 Award of Excellence winners, who were selected from a group of more than 100 associates nominated across the company, are:
• Jasyn Fowler, Belk of Bel Air Mall, Mobile, Alabama
• Amy McGhee, Belk of West Town Mall, Knoxville, Tennessee
• Vanessa Poinsette, Belk Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina
• Dontrice Stephens, Belk of Gainesville, Gainesville
The annual awards program recognizes associates who best represent the company’s value “to be involved in our communities” and highlights the importance of giving back to communities across the South that make Belk’s growth and success possible. The winners were chosen based on their contributions to organizations and causes that fall within Belk’s community focus areas: education, breast cancer awareness and research and community strengthening. According to a news release, the winners also demonstrated excellence in their support of Belk-sponsored community service projects, fundraising events and philanthropic activities, as well as exceptional job performance.
The following stories - taken from the news release - describe some of the key reasons why they were selected for the award:
Jasyn Fowler
Regional Visual Coordinator, Belk of Bel Air Mall, Mobile, Alabama
Jasyn Fowler’s positive impact on the people, landscape and community of Mobile is evident through his volunteer efforts with local charities, churches and schools.
Whether he’s working for Keep Mobile Beautiful, a group that helps preserve and revitalize the city, or mowing a vacant lot on his street every week to keep the area clean, Jasyn is passionate about making his city look its best. Jasyn also works with the Mobile Area Food Bank to provide food and fellowship to soldiers returning home from active duty. He serves as the president of South Lafayette Association promoting neighborhood awareness and relationship building throughout the community and is on the board for the local theatre community. He is chairman of an annual fundraiser that raised $80,000 this year, providing maintenance and supplementing teacher salaries for a local school. He also donates his time and talent to paint local school classrooms and landscape the property.
Jasyn is also an active member in his church and volunteers through his church to provide shelter, food and spiritual guidance to homeless families. He recently organized a casino night fundraiser at his church to help raise money for underprivileged children to attend school.
Amy McGhee
Sales Team Manager, Better Sportswear, Moderates, Petites and Swim, Belk of West Town Mall, Knoxville, Tennessee
Amy McGhee demonstrates her passion for serving her community by leading Belk volunteer initiatives and through her personal efforts to improve the lives of children and others in her community.
Amy serves as the Give Back captain and rallies her store team to partner with community organizations. She organized a food drive to support a local Title 1 school, and the store was able to donate and deliver over 1,400 snacks for students, ensuring that every student has a snack during their testing week. She also coordinated with the school to have Belk associates volunteer at the school’s field day and donate water for events. Amy led the store in an annual food drive for the region and was instrumental in collecting more than 1,000 cans of food. Throughout the year, she volunteers at a local homeless shelter and encourages her fellow associates to help her in those efforts. During the holidays, she holds a coat drive that brought in more than 50 coats for the Knoxville homeless last year. Through Amy’s hard work of serving as United Way captain for her store, she was able to engage the total store population to give back and achieved the store goal of $5,100, significantly beating their total for the previous year.
Beyond her extensive volunteering and fundraising efforts, Amy is very involved in her church and her children’s schools, helping out whenever she can.
Vanessa Poinsette
Fine Jewelry Associate, Belk Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina
Vanessa Poinsette has an undeniable passion for working with organizations that uplift and support the women in her community.
Vanessa recognizes the need for teaching young women basic life skills and volunteers a significant amount of her time to the Charleston’s Choice Women’s Center. Through this organization that empowers women and their families, Vanessa was instrumental in developing workshops on topics such as table etiquette, hygiene, healthy eating, professional networking and more. She served on the board of this organization last year and was awarded the “Volunteer of the Year” award in 2014.
Through Belk, Vanessa is heavily involved in the “Pink is Our Passion” Campaign and serves as the coordinator for Charity Day, actively recruiting new charities in the community to participate. Vanessa also volunteers for Dress for Success and coordinates seminars for young women entering the workplace with the help of her Belk store.
Where there is a need, Vanessa finds a way to help. When a fellow co-worker needed treatment, she organized a fundraiser dinner and coordinated with her region’s Belk stores to promote the cause, assisting in the costs of medical bills and transport to the hospital.
Dontrice Stephens
Operations Team Assistant, Belk of Gainesville
Dontrice Stephens’ commitment to the success of his store, community and the future generation is evident in the work he does on and off the job.
Two years ago, Dontrice recognized a need in his community to help young males who don’t have a role model in their lives. This is where his non-profit G’s to Gents was born. G’s to Gents teaches young males how to manage money, pay bills, speak properly, dress professionally and be responsible for themselves and their families. He currently has 16 boys in this group, and it is becoming so popular that he is in the process of getting the program implemented into the local schools.
Dontrice is always ready to help, whether it’s being Belkie bear at a Kidfest event, feeding the homeless or inspiring youth to be the best that they can be. He has been involved with the YMCA for over 10 years and is the director of sports, overseeing four sports and personally coaching basketball, flag football and soccer. Of the three sports, basketball is his passion, and he led the basketball team to the final tournament this past year. These tournaments cost money to participate in, and Dontrice pays the way for his players that can’t afford to go by holding local fundraisers or, if need be, from his own pocket. He also began a soccer program at the YMCA for children called Little Kickers. He recognized that the younger children were brothers and sisters of his G’s to Gents group and wanted to teach them not only how to play soccer, but how to listen, follow instructions and be part of a team.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/9/445534/gainesville-belk-employee-one-of-four-company-wide-named-winner-of-this-years-award-of-excellence