Key Takeaways

  • I started organizing this campaign years before Atlantic Tech existed, and the reasons haven't changed.
  • The campaign runs the same way every December, regardless of how the company's numbers looked that quarter.
  • I focus on the basics, toys, and essential supplies, because childhood and cold weather don't wait for a family's finances to catch up.
  • I stay personally involved because proximity is what keeps giving honest.

Every December, I organize a holiday campaign that delivers toys and essential supplies to families across Cheyenne. It is one of the more consistent things on my calendar, and one of the least publicized, and both of those facts say something about how I think about giving in general.

Why Do I Organize This Every December?

The honest answer is that the campaign isn't tied to how the year went. It runs on the same footing every December no matter what the company's numbers looked like that quarter, because it was never built around the company's numbers to begin with. That habit goes back to years before Atlantic Tech existed, when giving anything at all required real sacrifice rather than spare budget. A campaign built on that foundation doesn't need a good year to justify itself. It only needs the calendar to turn to winter.

Who Is This Campaign Actually For?

The holidays tend to expose a gap that exists year-round but gets harder to ignore in December. Some families have the resources to make the season feel normal for their kids. Others do not, and that gap is exactly where I aim this campaign. I keep it focused on basics on purpose, toys and essential supplies, because childhood doesn't pause for a family's financial circumstances, and because the holidays often land during the coldest, most expensive stretch of the year for families already working with a thin margin.

Why Do I Keep This Personal Instead of Handing It Off?

I organize this campaign myself rather than routing it through a foundation or a marketing calendar, and that's a deliberate choice. A personal commitment survives a slow year in a way a program built mainly for visibility never does. For me, philanthropy has never been about visibility to begin with, so the campaign happens whether or not anyone outside the families involved ever hears about it. Staying personally involved, packing boxes, and meeting the families, rather than just approving a budget line, keeps me honest about why I'm doing this in the first place.

What Does This Have to Do With How I Give in General?

This campaign isn't a standalone gesture. It fits the same pattern that runs through the rest of what I support: working with young people facing hard circumstances, humanitarian aid, and community programs closer to home. Each of those commitments predates Atlantic Tech's success and keeps going independent of it. The holiday campaign is simply the version of that pattern that appears once a year, right when the need is most visible and immediate.

That's the same principle behind why my giving came first, just wearing a winter coat. The order matters to me. Giving came before the company, and it stays first every December regardless of what the company did that year.

What This Looks Like in Practice

In the weeks leading up to the campaign, I spend time with local schools and community contacts to identify the families who need the most help that year. Need shifts from one December to the next, a layoff, a medical bill, a car that finally gave out, and I'd rather adjust to what's actually happening than run the same list every year out of habit. Once I know who we're reaching, I focus on toys that kids actually want rather than whatever is easiest to source in bulk, and on the essentials that make the coldest month of the year survivable, coats, boots, and groceries that stretch further than they look.

I try to be there myself when the boxes go out. It would be simpler to write a check and let someone else handle delivery, and some years logistics require exactly that. But whenever I can, I want to see the families receiving what we've put together, not because it makes for a better story, but because it keeps the whole effort honest. It is much harder to treat giving as a line item once you've watched a parent's face when a box gets set down on their kitchen table.

The Habit I'm Not Willing to Break

It would be easy to treat a holiday campaign as a seasonal formality, the kind of gesture people make every December because it's expected. Mine reads differently, mostly because of when it started. A habit that began during hardship and continued through every season since isn't performing generosity for an audience. It's keeping a commitment I made a long time before there was anyone around to see it kept, and I intend to keep making it long after anyone stops paying attention.

If you're in a season where giving feels impossible to justify, I'd only say that mine felt impossible to justify, too, right up until I stopped waiting for it to feel easy.

What People Usually Ask Me About This

Do you run this campaign through a nonprofit or foundation?

No. I organize it personally, which is unusual by corporate standards, but it's the only way I know to keep it honest and to stay close enough to the families involved that I never lose sight of why I'm doing it.

How do you decide which families to help?

I focus on need that's real and immediate rather than families who happen to be visible. Local schools, shelters, and community contacts help me find the families who need it most, and I try to keep the process quiet and dignified for everyone involved.

Why keep this private instead of publicizing it more?

Because publicity was never the point. If the giving depended on attention, it would stop the moment the attention did, and I've never wanted it to be that fragile.