SF Giants Send Human Resources to Brighten Guest Parties

Not everyone who bats for the San Francisco Giants is aiming for a ball. The Giants HR department goes to bat for the the players, the business employees, and the community. Last month, they were here at St. Anthony’s decorating the event room for the holidays.

We always decorate the Dining Room for special occasions. As St. Anthony’s has grown, however, there’s more space to cover in order to throw our guests the kind of parties we really want to. The event room — the New Poverello — is where St. Anthony programs give holiday parties for the guests who use our services: the Clinic, the Tech Lab, and the Social Work Center.

We were about to haul out the sorry old plastic greens and put staff to work on it when the SF Giants Human Resources Department called. Yes, they’d like to make this room special. Yes, they’d bring new decorations themselves. And bring they did. Boxes and boxes of garlands, tinsel, Christmas tree bulbs, lights and icicles, wall decorations and hanging ornaments for both Christmas and Chanukah. There were decorations left over for the Dining Room and probably for next year.

It’s a challenge, hanging up decorations in a green building. You have to use tape that doesn’t take the unleaded paint off the walls. The group made use of lights and the enormous columns in the room. They were good natured about the Christmas tree that hadn’t arrived by the time they were finished. And someone had the bright thought of hanging tree ornaments from the light fixtures with curling ribbon: no tape needed. Even the piano looked like a New Year’s party chanteuse by the time they got through.

The Giants have a solid community service record. With an advance application, they give free tickets and make in-kind donations to some oganizations serving the very poor, promote non-profits and community organizations through their in-park matrix board messages, and host a community club house behind home plate for organizations to raise awareness and educate Giants fans about their work.

A few hundred guests saw the work the Giants HR Department did on the party room. I wish the HR Department could have seen the guests’ faces.

(The picture is about a third of the Giants staff who came in to help. )