Last year, Business in Focus reported on the organization’s history, growth, and success. This year, we caught up again with Founder and President, Mike Lucht, to learn about 1-800-SWEEPER’s commitment to giving back.
Commitment to Giving Back
1-800-SWEEPER raised $65,492 for Veterans Matter in 2020. Veterans Matter is a Toledo, Ohio-based non-profit that brings private sector resources and Veterans Affairs (VA) resources together to house veterans in VA-supported housing as quickly as possible. The non-profit’s innovative, cloud-based rapid resource response, carried out in partnership with the VA’s homeless veteran’s program, allows veterans to access housing in a matter of minutes, rather than the standard thirty-day to sixty-day waiting period. Basically, donations are used to pay deposits directly to a landlord to get veterans and their families housed right away.
To raise money for Veterans Matter, the 1-800-SWEEPER team asked for pledges from Partners as well as from individuals and organizations outside of the 1-800-SWEEPER umbrella. Partners like Lucht “reached out to friends, family, customers,” anyone who might be willing to help a veteran in need. “I went through my phone list and sent many text messages and sent off the flyer that we created and just broadcasted it to anybody and everybody because there is no exclusion here—everybody can participate in a campaign such as that, so it wasn’t specific to people in our industry,” Lucht says.
1-800-SWEEPER Foundation
The 1-800-SWEEPER Foundation is another way that the organization gives back. The brainchild of Lucht, the organization launched the foundation in 2016 to serve Partner companies’ local communities throughout the United States. “We earn our money in the communities that we live in, and we try to identify the needs within the communities of our Partners that on occasion might need a little boost,” Lucht says. “We are all privately owned small businesses that have a commitment to give back.”
Funds go to a variety of needs including qualified environmental and community beautification projects, local Wounded Warriors programs, and natural disaster relief. For example, the foundation donated a substantial sum to help rebuild Gatlinburg, Tennessee after a wildfire ravaged the Smokey Mountain community. In addition, $10,000 of the $65,492 raised for Veterans Matter came from the 1-800-SWEEPER Foundation.
As 1-800-SWEEPER celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, the team is eager to keep moving forward as they look back over a decade of supporting local communities and successfully bringing the industry together. “We’ve accomplished some things that I think most people in this industry never thought would ever happen in terms of creating a successful cooperative,” Lucht says.
If you’d like to donate to the 1-800-SWEEPER Foundation, please visit www.toledocf.org/1800sweeper.
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