TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® Nashville Celebrates the Brand's Core Values on the Local Level

The marketing director at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK*® Nashville, Jenni Hargrove, has always had an interest in charitable work. Before joining the team at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK®, she worked for a non-profit organization, and in her search for a new position, one of her main qualifications for the job was that the company focused on giving back to the community and making a difference where they lived and worked.

Upon beginning the position, Hargrove sat down with the franchisee, Steve Delaney, to come up with a plan on how they could maximize their efforts in Nashville. They chose three different main initiatives that go along with some of the biggest issues in Nashville: family homelessness, childhood education, and taking care of homeless pets.

The franchise just completed a wildly successful Movers for Mutts campaign. The initiative is very important to the team because almost everyone at the franchise has at least one rescue pet. Last year was the first time they implemented the collection, and it “automatically took hold in the community,” Hargrove comments.

The franchise partners with the Nashville Humane Association in Nashville to collect donations from the community with drop-off boxes at the Nashville TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® locations and local pet stores. Through ample promoting, they not only receive donations from the general community, but they also get additional items from other small businesses, animal hospitals, pet stores, and even hotels. To make the collections a success, Hargrove organized five different events, including a “yoga with your dog” event and a festival. This year, the Nashville team tallied more than 12,000 donations of items or cash donations of $5.00 or more.

But helping pets in need is only one of the three community initiatives that the Nashville TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® location focuses on. Another great initiative is a program with Nashville’s Title 1 Schools. At the schools, more than half of the students are living in poverty, with poor literacy rates and standardized test scores. TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® gives these schools free moves when they get large book donations so that the students can have access to books through a non-profit in the state, Book’em. Two staff members at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® are also volunteer readers through the program, meeting with children to teach them the joys and value that books can bring to a young student.

“The first time I did a reading with Book’em, the kids thought I was bringing the books for them to borrow,” said Hargrove. “They didn’t grasp that these brand new books were for them to own – hardcover and shiny, new books. It was such a nice experience to be a part of because they wouldn’t have access to these books without the program.”

To further help children in the community, Hargrove began a “Christmas in July” coat drive last year for one of the Title 1 Schools the franchise partners with. They collected 200 coats for kids to keep warm during Nashville’s chilly winters.

And even though the kids are a main initiative, another childhood education campaign includes donating free moves for teachers at the start of the school year. Hargrove explains that the teachers have so much to worry about that rearranging the furniture shouldn’t be one of their priorities. Instead, teachers can focus on getting ready for the school year with lesson plans.

Additionally, the largest national campaign for TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® is the Movers for Moms collection that takes place annually throughout April and May leading up to Mother’s Day. Every location across the U.S. collects donations for women and children in need.

“We donate the items to Safe Haven Family Shelter, and working with them is really, really important for us because it’s the only shelter that accepts families and doesn’t split them up,” said Hargrove. “The worst thing you can do for homeless kids is to split them up and provide a more unstable environment for them, so we truly value our partnership with Safe Haven and respect their work.”

In addition to the Movers for Moms collections, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® also donates moves to these families when they find affordable housing, and they also work with Safe Haven to move donated furniture to give to families in need.

“We try and go above and beyond what customers expect from a move,” said Hargrove. “We were a small franchise with a couple of trucks, and we now employ more movers and drivers than any other moving company in town. We have an entire fleet of trucks due to the community using us for their moving needs. We have always made giving back a top priority because we feel a responsibility to give back to Nashville since the city has embraced our presence from the start.”