Culture of giving back strong at Enbridge

By Brian Kemp

Two timber wolves came out of the woods, first a light-coloured massive male and then a darker female with piercing almost yellow eyes framed by the markings on her face. Magnificent animals, they moved as only wolves can move - light, smooth, and looking fierce. Paul Soffron, owner and co-founder of Wolf Hollow sanctuary in Ipswich, Mass., explained to a gathered crowd of 15 visitors that some of the other wolves were shy.

He raised his head and howled, long and deep. Four more wolves trotted out of the dense forest. The wolves gathered and howled back to Soffron. A chill went up my spine as I stood safely behind a fence. It was wild and beautiful.

“These wolves are flourishing at the sanctuary. They are healthy and strong and most importantly alive,” Saffron told us before starting a wide-ranging talk about the lives of wolves and the threats they face.

I asked him after the presentation why he volunteered his land and time to look after wolves. He looked at me with brown eyes that reminded me of a wolf’s eyes and replied: “Because I can make a difference, and I choose to make a difference.”

Those words from years ago have stuck with me – “I choose to make a difference.”

'The importance of kindness and helping those in need'

Making a difference is why I became a journalist. I was also inspired by Saffron to take some of my spare time to join a group that nursed injured wild animals back to health before being released back to nature. When I transported a sea duck I had looked after for a month to the ocean and watched it fly freely over the waves once again, I believed it made a small difference in the ecosystem.

“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t need a college degree to serve…You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love,” Martin Luther King Jr. said of service and volunteering.

That giving-back spirit, that soul, is why I love working for Enbridge. It’s not just a corporation - at its heart are thousands of giving, caring people spread across Canada and the United States who volunteer and give back to the communities where they live and work.

“Oh, he’s being paid by them, so he writes nice things,” some might say in this commentary world we now live in.

No, that’s not the case. During my time as a journalist, I interviewed hundreds of people who contributed to their communities. They helped me understand what it means to give back. I understand and see that Enbridge is a company filled with caring people. It has a culture of giving back. Period.

During hundreds of community events spread throughout the year, Enbridge employees gather to help food banks or women’s shelters or a playground that needs fixing up or plant trees in a forest that needs more trees – the list goes on and on.

My job is to help tell their stories, and I am filled with admiration when I reveal them to the world on social media. I also talk to the community groups. They speak highly of employees, and say they are making a difference in communities.

As a writer, I always ask the “why” question, which is really the most important question of all, as it drills down to a person’s core being - and when the “why” is finally revealed it can often motivate and inspire.

There’s Kyle Cooper, a Specialist Business Development for Compressed Natural Gas at Enbridge Gas.

He told me he volunteers in his community because “as a father of twin girls, I strive to lead by example. I want to show them, and others, the importance of kindness and helping those in need.

“Volunteering offers a unique sense of fulfillment, from the joy of making a difference to the growth that comes from new experiences and connections,” Kyle added.

Then there’s Stephanie Lovering and Luanda Campbell, who helped start Enbridge’s Legal Mentorship Program because they felt empathy for the struggles of first-year law students – empathy that sprung from the school experiences of their own children.

They’ve made a difference for dozens of students.

We have so many stories of how people at Enbridge give back, how they make small or big differences.

I’m honoured to help tell their stories of difference making and reveal them to the world one story at a time.

Brian Kemp is a former CBC and newspaper journalist who now works for Enbridge Gas.