TWO MEN AND A TRUCK Lives Out Motto as “Movers Who Care®”

TWO MEN AND A TRUCK was founded on the principle of giving back to the communities in which it lives and serves. Over the last few years, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has expanded its efforts to help veterans, children, and those affected by natural disasters by building partnerships with Operation Finally Home, Cheeriodicals and Convoy of Hope.

Operation Finally Home is a non-profit organization that builds homes for wounded, ill or injured veterans and their families. TWO MEN AND A TRUCK contributed to this effort in 2018 by providing much-needed moving services for free.

TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has several programs that give back to the communities it serves, including Movers for Moms®, Movers for Meals®, Movers for Military, Movers for Mutts® and Truckload of Warmth. The Movers for Military program aims to provide critical assistance to veterans who are facing crises and living in shelters.

Partnering with Operation Finally Home allowed TWO MEN AND A TRUCK to expand its efforts to help members of the military and their families.

Cathleen Jones, marketing manager for the TWO MEN AND A TRUCK St. Louis, Mo., franchise said her location received a phone call from TWO MEN AND A TRUCK’s corporate home office asking for help to move a veteran and his family from Chicago to St. Louis.

Jones’ office coordinated with TWO MEN AND A TRUCK Chicago office to make it all happen.

“It wasn’t easy, but we figured out how to get all of their stuff from Chicago to St. Louis,” Jones said. “It was fun to work with Operation Finally Home. We showed up the day the family moved in. The mayor was there, plus a ton of dignitaries. They had a whole procession when the family arrived. The family had not seen the house since November and it was June. When the family saw the house the last time it didn’t have walls. Now it was fully decorated and furnished. It was amazing.”

Jones noted how the Scott Air Force Base is close to St. Louis, and that St. Louis is home to two major VA hospitals.

“Giving back to the community is very important to us and in St. Louis at least 30 percent of our charitable activities go to veterans and we’ve done that for over 20 years,” Jones said. “I know that we work with a lot of organizations in St. Louis and we enjoy doing it and they are thankful and appreciative.”

Katie Enzor is the marketing consultant for TWO MEN AND A TRUCK’s Auburn franchise, which services the Auburn-Montogomery areas in Alabama. The Auburn franchise covers the larger middle portion of Alabama and is one of five TWO MEN AND A TRUCK locations in the state.

Operation Finally Home reached out to TWO MEN AND A TRUCK’s Auburn location to see if the brand could offer help moving a veteran and his family from Huntsville to Auburn back in June.

The answer was yes, and the Auburn location also incorporated the Huntsville TWO MEN AND A TRUCK franchise in the effort. The Auburn and Huntsville TWO MEN AND A TRUCK locations wanted to make the moving process “as seamless as possible” for the veteran and his family, Enzor said.

Enzor worked with seven Operation Finally Home case managers to get this all done and said “their drive and their passion” meshed well with that of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK.

“They were all so great to work with,” Enzor said of the Operation Finally Home case managers. “They were super efficient and always had a response with my questions. If they didn’t know the answer, they got back to me within a couple of hours.”

The contribution meant that TWO MEN AND A TRUCK wouldn’t be able to take as many moves during its busiest month, but the effort was well worth it, and Enzor was thrilled to be involved.

“We were down to the wire, but we were so excited about doing this,” Enzor said. “It was just an amazing, collaborative effort. Our franchisee, Joe Lovvorn, is the battalion chief for our local fire department and he is the local state representative for District 79. He also works very heavily with the armed forces here, so when this was brought to our attention we were like, ‘Yep, we’re doing it!’”

TWO MEN AND A TRUCK also began working with Convoy of Hope during the tragic hurricanes in the fall of 2017.

Convoy of Hope is an international humanitarian organization that takes on a variety of causes, including natural disaster relief, hunger relief and funding international women’s entrepreneurial efforts.

Convoy of Hope most recently partnered with TWO MEN AND A TRUCK on relief efforts after Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Florence. The partnership started when Convoy of Hope Partner Relations Regional Director for the South region Eric Neubauer reached out to TWO MEN AND A TRUCK to help with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

“Convoy of Hope provides the goods,” Convoy of Hope Partner Relations Regional Director for the South region Eric Neubauer said. “We are experts at logistics. We have an infranstructure that allows us to be self-sustaining, and we have both corporate partnerships and warehousing that allows us to stay stocked. When a hurricane hits, we move into an area and create a temporary distribution area near the disaster zone and we use our organizational and church partnerships to create smaller pods or points of distribution throughout the impacted area. Where TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has been super strategic is they bring men and trucks, and we load them up and they go to pods and distribute supplies. They really help us to expand our capacity.”

Neubauer praised TWO MEN AND A TRUCK for its philanthropic efforts.

“You could just tell there was something there in the heart of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK to help communities in need,” Neubauer said. “They were impressed with our work and that was really the beginning of how we connected. Because they have so many franchises, it makes sense how we can work together to respond to these national disasters. We’ve since then been working to cultivate a partnership that will leverage their logistics capacity and Convoy of Hope’s need in times of disasters and other opportunities to really serve people.”

Neubauer also pointed to TWO MEN AND A TRUCK’s long history of charitable efforts.

“I would venture to say they care more about their communities than the bottom line,” he said. “They’re not only there to build a business. They are also there to serve people in their times of need. To me, that was what connected us together.”

TWO MEN AND A TRUCK also works with Cheeriodicals, an organization that works to provide fun gift boxes for children and veterans in hospitals.

This year, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK partnered with Cheeriodicals to assemble and deliver cheer in the form of 300 of Cheeriodicals’ signature green boxes on March 6 at the company’s annual conference in Orlando, and then delivered them to the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

The partnership started seven years ago when Cheeriodicals Founder Gary Parisher needed to deliver boxes to a hospital on Ohio. He saw a TWO MEN AND A TRUCK moving truck while driving through Birmingham, Ala., and decided to give the company a call.

Since then, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK locations in the U.S. and Canada have made more than 200 deliveries, transporting and distributing more than 50,000 boxes to children’s and veteran’s hospitals in both countries.

“We could not do what we do without them,” Parisher said of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK. “The Orlando children’s hospital delivery was also the first time they sponsored an event and assembled the boxes. Our partnership with TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has allowed us to deliver cheer to literally thousands of children.”