Giving Season is Upon Us
IST's Gives Back
As 2023 closes, we celebrate another successful year of connecting IST with our community and keeping compassion at the center of our business. As IST grows, we prioritize community outreach and cherish the relationships we build as we partner with great organizations such as MUST Ministries and The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. We are able to make such a sizable impact on our community because of the passion and participation of our company leaders, employees, and friends.
Our Giving Season Toy Drive began on October 1st and will be ending at the end of this month. Our Atlanta team did a fantastic job filling all of our collection boxes at corporate — honorable mention of a standout donation, a Disney Frozen Bicycle!
Christmas Charity Event
This past weekend, IST's President & CEO Hal Blackman and his wife Rosa hosted their annual Christmas Charity Event, where guests were encouraged to bring gifts to donate. All donations collected at IST's corporate Headquarters and this event will go to the MUST Holiday Toy Shop. This shop allows families in need to avoid the financial burden of gifting for their children while maintaining their ability to pick out personalized gifts, providing a memorable experience for their families. The MUST Toy Shop serves six thousand children every holiday season.
CFF Support & Giving
The Giving Season is one of many opportunities to show our appreciation for our Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Ambassador, Blake. Blake, his mother, Jennifer, and his younger sister, Lila, joined us for our Christmas Lunch with an Ugly Sweater Contest to celebrate. This year, 13 corporate employees donated $2,500 to fund Blake & Lila's annual Christmas gift. Among other items, the family was gifted tickets to Atlanta's Botanical Gardens and a weekend trip to Stone Mountain.
As 2024 approaches, our program reflects on our fantastic outreach efforts this past year. In February, our CEO Hal won the CFF 2022 Chapter's Hero of Hope Award, which honors individuals without a direct connection to CF who have brought awareness to, fundraised with, and educated their local communities while supporting CFF's mission. In March, IST’s 2023 CFF Great Strides Fundraising was a success, with employees from many sites attending their walk and a total of $24,000 raised nationally. We planted a native species tree alongside the creek in The Preserve at Halidom. IST also financially contributed to One Tree Planted, supporting urban re-forestry in April for Earth Month and Earth Day this year. May’s efforts were funded by employee donations earlier this year, and our Events team assisted Gives Back in assembling 50 self-care gift bags for moms at the MUST Hope House for Mother's Day. In June we partnered with Lost N Found Youth and collected nineteen boxes and thirteen trash bags (700+ pounds) of clothing for their charitable thrift store supporting LGBTQ+ Homeless Youth in Atlanta. We spent July through September partnering with The Ticket To Dream Foundation to host a Back to School Supplies Drive with the help of their personalized IST Target Registry. We collected six boxes with around 200 pounds of school supplies distributed to foster children in the Metro Atlanta area. Throughout the year, IST Gives Back donates a monthly average of 15 Chromebook laptops to the MUST Hope House for students and parents to utilize. We donated 130 laptops in 2023.
In the New Year, IST hopes the Gives Back program can continue to elevate how we engage our employees and contribute to the greater good of our communities, not only locally in Atlanta but nationally. Thank You for your support, interest, and donations this year; we could not have done any of it without our incredibly hard-working employees, friends, and IST family!
Contact Info
IST Management Services, Inc.
1341 Moreland Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30316