Celebrating 75 Years at Vancity – Employee Appreciation
We love working with local businesses, especially values-aligned brands like Vancity. Vancity is a values-based financial co-operative serving the needs of its more than 560,000 member-owners and their communities, with offices and 54 branches located in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Victoria, Squamish and Alert Bay, within the territories of the Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw people. With $33 billion in assets plus assets under administration, Vancity is Canada’s largest community credit union. Vancity uses its assets to help improve the financial well-being of its members while at the same time helping to develop healthy communities that are socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
Employee Appreciation Project
Amidst the pandemic and the anticipation of the return to normal, we developed three themes for Vancity’s Employee Appreciation Kits; Back to Connecting, Explore the Outdoors, and Finding Calm. Each kit included a theme of products, a Cupanion water bottle (that helps users track the impact of re-using water bottles), a customized box, and a seed paper postcard with a personal message for each department.
- Triumphs – We could source many of our products from Impact vendors (that have a strong mission and sustainable and ethical business practices) and local (Vancouver vendors). Vendors included:
- MiiR (a certified B Corp and Climate Neutral Business)
- East Van Roasters (a local CCC, Community Contribution Company)
- Great Bear Rainforest essential oils (an Indigenous-supported social enterprise)
- Bannock Mix from Mr. Bannock (Indigenous-owned, BC-based business)
- Considerations – Buying local and from social impact vendors are great, but considerations must be made regarding their production capacity. Many of these vendors aren’t set up to produce large volumes of products in short amounts of time. Moreover, they might need to order more supplies to fulfill the order. So, if you want to support local or buy from impact vendors, please give yourself a little more time so you can support the manufacturing capacity of these awesome small scale vendors.
Kit 1 – Back to Connecting
Weaved with the comfort of food and the purpose of entertaining.
- Econscious Organic Cotton Recycled Polyester Eco Apron
- Classic Bannock Mix by Mr. Bannock
- Andrew Williams Design Octopus Tea Towel
- East Van Roasters Coffee
- East Van Roasters Chocolate Bar
Kit2 – Explore the Outdoors
Fitted with quality products for their next adventure.
- Light My Fire Reusable Spork
- MiiR Olympus 2L Sling Bag
- Made in Vancouver Camper Hat
Kit3 – Finding Calm
Themed toward relaxation and self-care.
- Justtea Tea Tin
- Tree Frog Sacred Bar Soap
- Great Bear Rainforest Stika Spruce Essential Oil
- East Van Roasters Chocolate Bar
- Locally made Satya Organic Balm
Featured Products
Cupanion Bottle & Fill It Forward – each kit included one of these bottles with a scanner code to track hydration and resources saved by reusing the same bottle over and over – hydrate, refill, scan. Learn More about this product in our guide.
East Van Roasters Coffee and Chocolate – An award-winning company that makes Organic Fair-Trade Chocolate “bean-to-bar” and a coffee roasting social enterprise. More on EVR and other promotional products with a cause.
Andrew Williams Octopus Tea Towel – With Embroidery | Tree Frog Sacred Bar Soap – Soap moulded to reflect the Spirit bear of BC – Original Art by Todd Baker, Squamish Nation artist. For more about the indigenous brands we offer, read Celebrating Indigenous-Owned Businesses. And connect with us about our vendor partners Great Bear Rainforest essential oils, Satya Organic, and Mr.Bannock.
Camp Hat – 100% Canadian made with Eco-friendly GOTS certified cotton twill blend – Includes custom woven label | Miir Sling Bag – 2L Olympus – Each Miir product sold helps fund transparent giving projects.
You can learn more about kitting in our 6 Steps to Custom Merchandise Kitting EBook.
