FIEGE bestows Volunteer Award on employees

Honour to whom honour is due: Last Tuesday, FIEGE awarded its in-house Volunteer Award for the sixth time. The accolade is intended for employees of the Greven logistics company who, next to their professional commitment, actively cultivate volunteering. The award, which was called to life in 2018, is FIEGE’s way of acknowledging and promoting the voluntary dedication within its own ranks while providing a stage for the projects of the employees. 

Felix Fiege, who has been running the fifth-generation, more than 150-year-old family business jointly with his cousin, Jens Fiege, explained during the award ceremony: “Volunteering is not a given. The latest statistics according to the sixth German Volunteering Survey which were published last November indicate that, even though volunteering in Germany is at a high level, it has been slightly on the decline compared to the previous survey. We are therefore even more grateful to all colleagues who dedicate their free time to becoming involved in different projects and initiatives.” Jens Fiege further emphasised: “Volunteering is a mainstay of our society. In times where we need to pro-actively defend our democracy and where our planet is threatened by climate change, we can’t highlight enough the importance of people who advocate solidarity, integration and inclusion, cultural fluency and environmental protection. With the FIEGE Volunteer Award, we aim to create the very visibility that such commitment deserves.”

This year’s winner, receiving prize money worth 1,000 euros, was a group of trainees from the FIEGE branch in Unna. With their trainers Michael Habermann and Roland Fabeck, the ten junior recruits independently called a bottle return campaign to life at their facility. The funds collected over the past year – the impressive sum of 1,200 euros – was doubled on the part of the FIEGE branch and handed to the children and youth hospice in the district of Unna at Christmas. Deniz Kilicaslan, the trainee who had pitched the project for the FIEGE Volunteer Award, said: “Our team with the technical department in Unna deals a lot with sustainability and social responsibility. We therefore sought a project which allowed us to combine the two. We are incredibly pleased to have received the FIEGE Volunteer Award for our dedication.” The team of trainees which includes next to Kilicaslan also Luljan Ajeti, Ilhan Bajram, Jean-Dirk Gutowski, Pascal Kresse, Maximilian Kowalewicz, Danny Middel, Constantin Miglietti, Xavier Heiduczek and Florian Groß, also expressed their special gratitude to all FIEGE colleagues who wholeheartedly supported their campaign. “We were surprised about the amount which we were able to gather simply by collecting everyday bottles that are sold with a refundable deposit. We hope that our donation will do good for children and the youth in our region who are cared for by the children and youth hospice on their difficult path.” 

A further four projects received 500 euros each in prize money: Sascha John, department head at the FIEGE location in Apfelstädt, received the award for his commitment on the board of GothaAdua e.V. Established in 2015, the association has ever since advocated the official town twinning between Gotha and Adua in Ethiopia in the realm of civil society. Luis Malchow, Junior SAP Consultant at FIEGE HQ in Greven, was distinguished for his volunteering activity at the butterfly farm in Warendorf. The farm offers animal assisted forms of therapy for children and their families facing either great misfortune, the loss of a family member or illness. Karen Homann, a Customer Service clerk at the FIEGE location in Hamburg, was pleased to receive the award for her support for Tannenhaus in Schwerin. The residential group by Sozius Kinder- und Jugendhilfe gGmbH cares for children who for various reasons can no longer live at home. And Sven Wörner, who is working for the SAP Support Team at the FIEGE branch in Unna, received the award for volunteering with the BNE Regional Centre, District of Unna Cappenberg Forest School. The certified facility offers numerous education and development programmes about sustainability geared to both children and adults. 

In total, some 20 projects applied for the FIEGE Volunteer Award this year. The winners were chosen by a jury which included next to the governing board of the Josef Fiege Stiftung also Annika Fiege and Christina Fiege, the wives of Jens Fiege and Felix Fiege respectively. Martina Schlottbom, who together with Kai Alfermann, Christoph Mangelmans and Frank Sievers constitute the Foundation’s governing board, explained: “Once again, we witnessed so many great initiatives that the decision was a very difficult one for us to make. To be honest, all colleagues would have deserved the FIEGE Volunteer Award for their hard work – so therefore a great compliment to all colleagues to volunteer to such extent in their free time. We hope that the five projects we have chosen which impressed us especially this year, shine a spotlight on them and that the prize money helps to provide even further support.”