Helping Toyota Earnestly Respond to an Immediate Emergency — Sparing the Immediate Cost
After the town of Huntsville, Alabama was hit with a tornado in Spring 2011, the town was devastated. Homes were destroyed, small business were in jeopardy, and Toyota's engine production plant faced profound damages. Toyota wanted to give back to the community, but was financially encumbered by the repairs needed to get their plant up and running and get local workers' lives back on track.
They needed to do something that would genuinely support the community that was the lifeblood of this facility, but wouldn't require too extreme of an immediate investment.
In response, I helped develop an expansion to their Diplomas to Degrees (D2D) program, guaranteeing college scholarship aid to the children of every Toyota Diploma in Huntsville. It lifted the community's spirits while offering that branch of the company enough time to get back on its feet financially before any massive investment was needed.
Years later, the program was a huge success — with many graduates of it returning to work at the Toyota factory itself!