Patrick Minnock, SAP US Pricing Expert and Volunteer, wins this quarter’s Volunteer Ambassador Award for his remarkable and selfless dedication to driving social impact with young students.
As part a new CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative, SAP will be recognizing an employee who goes above and beyond to enable social impact in his or her local community each quarter. These outstanding individuals are called Volunteer Ambassadors. In North America alone, SAP has 150 Volunteer Ambassadors who contribute regularly to promote, support and lead volunteer activities in their communities in addition to their daily workload,. These employees embody the characteristics of hard work and dedication as well as our SAP core values.
This quarter, Patrick Minnock, Pricing Expert from SAP US was chosen as the Q1 2013 Volunteer Ambassador for his contributions with longtime SAP non-profit partner Junior Achievement (JA) in Newtown Square. Our inspirational leader is being recognized for his exemplary service to the program, where he led a group of seven SAP employee volunteers in coaching and mentoring 18 students from several high schools around the area that participate in the Junior Achievement program.
“Patrick and this program have taught me that the leaders with the biggest impact are often the ones who inspire leadership in others,” said Abby Shagin, SAP volunteer for the JA program. Echoes volunteer Brian Jones, “Patrick was the driving force behind the success at this year’s JA@SAP program. His energy and commitment enabled the volunteers and students to achieve a very successful year.”
The JA program is an entrepreneurial opportunity of a lifetime for high school students, giving them the chance to develop, run and liquidate an entire organization in 18 short weeks. Groups meet weekly to build their company by electing leaders, choosing a product, marketing and selling that product and inevitably selling off all assets to close the business. As a crescendo to the 4+ months of hard work, the students compete regionally via trade booths, interviews and presentations to win awards.
Not only did Patrick lead SAP’s group of mentors (Chelsea Crawford, Michael Fraim, Rebecca Hamilton, Brian Jones, Caleb Luther, Alex Pearl, and Abby Shagin) to support the students, but he also led the high school students to victory at the Delaware Valley JA Company Program Competition.
“It was Patrick’s energetic and humble approach that earned him the respect of the volunteers like myself and the student participants, while guiding the SAP JA Company Team to its first ever 1st place finish in this competition,” said Alex Pearl, Director of Operations for SAP NA Education and volunteer.
This year’s SAP CSR Sponsored team, StayHot, sold coffee cozies to combat the billions of pounds of paper waste produced by one-time use coffee cozies you typically get from most coffee shops. The team was able to sell close to 11,000 cozies and secured revenue of nearly $7,500, with a quarter of proceeds donated the Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC) in Pennsylvania.
Thanks to Patrick, the students sold their first 10,000 units to the SAP Services Winner’s Circle and the rest as a vendor at the SAP NSQ office. At the Delaware Valley JA Company Program Competition Patrick’s team was awarded multiple awards for StayHot including “Overall Best Company”, “Best Company Stage Presentation” as well as second place for “Best President” and “Employee of the Year”.
Patrick is proud to speak of the hard work put into this project. “I want people to realize high level of work and dedication these high school students really put into this. The idea and business plans were 100% conceived from them!” Patrick also emphasized the students’ growth during the 15 week process. Students who were shy became assertive and excellent public speakers by the end of the program. Five students were chosen to present at the competition and all 18 carried themselves in a professional manner.
The JA Company project is only one way that Patrick has shown his dedication to CSR this past year. His commitment to the students and the community is admirable and the CSR team is extremely grateful to have him leading the charge in NSQ.
Congratulations to Patrick! On behalf of CSR and the SAP community, we would like to extend our gratitude for his admirable and inspirational work. Patrick will receive a short term achievement award from the CSR team.
Want to nominate an SAP volunteer ambassador in your area? Send an email to csr.na@sap.com. We award monthly and quarterly to our volunteer leads.
