On Friday, November 15 seventeen accountants roamed the basement of Main Library, taking inventory of back issues of 240 magazine subscriptions. They also cleaned shelves, sorted cookbooks, inventoried bound serial journals and restocked the Library’s book sale.  All in two hours.

Why? Because for employees of PwC, giving back is in their job description.

Crawford Pounds, PwC’s Southeast Market Managing Partner, leads by example as a longtime Library supporter and chair of the Library Foundation’s board, and the firm’s commitment to community service can be found at every level.

Holly Trotter oversees Responsible Business Leadership for the firm’s Charlotte office, and her role is to make it easy for all PwC employees to make a difference in the community. “We offer incentives for staff to give back through volunteering and charitable giving individually and through planned group events led by partners in the firm. The Library’s mission aligns so clearly with our firm’s goals around financial literacy, closing the opportunity gap and helping people reach their full potential. The Library delivers on all of this, and many of our employees find it a convenient and rewarding place to volunteer.”

Volunteers are a critical part of Library operations, and corporate groups like PwC and others make it possible to complete large projects quickly. The Library’s Volunteer Manager Chauna Wall notes, “Corporate volunteer groups make a huge difference because they can focus on a specific task like shifting collections and complete in a few hours what would have taken Library staff weeks to complete. This dramatically minimizes downtime for patrons.”

The Library’s 20 locations make volunteering convenient for businesses and organizations throughout the County, and Wall works with groups to find a task and location that aligns with their interests.

To learn more about volunteering with a group, contact Chauna Wall at cwall@cmlibrary.org.