Positivity: A KPMG Office Reaches Out to Soldiers in Iraq
A toast to the Short Hills, NJ office of the accounting giant (link requires subscription):
A KPMG office reaches out to soldiers in Iraq
NEW YORK - The country may be divided over the war in Iraq, but one office of KPMG LLP is solidly behind a volunteer effort to aid American servicemen and servicewomen in that war-torn country.
For nearly two years, the Short Hills, N.J., office of the New York-based tax and financial advisory firm has been donating food, clothes, radios, DVDs and other supplies to American troops stationed in Iraq.
Volunteers from the office are working closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs Voluntary Service and have been honored by AMVETS NJ in Lyndhurst, N.J.
Broad support
“The enthusiasm for the effort has been overwhelming,” said Steve Fiacco, director of operations for the Short Hills office. “It’s been supported by all the employees. There’s been no controversy.”
The volunteer effort has been headed by Usha Rishi, a senior administrative assistant for the firm who emigrated to the United States from Malaysia 20 years ago.
She said she “definitely wanted to do something.” What Ms. Rishi was seeing on TV and reading about in the papers “touched my heart,” she said. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”
She went to the Internet and found anysoldier.com, a website that helps volunteers select a division of the armed forces they want to help, and then find out what kind of donations they can use.
But Ms. Rishi also wanted to make sure the KPMG office would be helping local servicemen, so she contacted the VA New Jersey Health Care System, located in nearby East Orange.
“I told them we wanted to help,” she recalled, “and asked them what we could do.”
Veterans in that facility needed toiletry kits, including soap and a toothbrush, which, she was told, were no longer being provided by the government. Working through the VA’s Partnership in Growth and Understanding of Needs Group, Ms. Rishi and other volunteers made a point to deliver the donations themselves. “We met a lot of soldiers,” she said, “and told them how much we appreciated what they had done.”
When Ms. Rishi found out that 350 members of the New Jersey National Guard were being deployed to Iraq last year and didn’t have enough supplies, KPMG donated care packages stuffed with items such as beef jerky, hard candy, socks, towels, books and magazines.
Most recently, KPMG has donated several dozen DVD players, shower slippers, and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and doughnuts to the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. “People donated old DVDs, and we bought new ones,” Ms. Rishi said. “Irrespective of how people in the office feel about the war, everyone’s been supportive of the men and women who are serving there.”
Long tradition
Mr. Fiacco pointed out that KPMG ….. has a longstanding volunteer tradition.
….. Ms. Rishi last year received the firm’s Chairman’s Award as one of the “outstanding volunteers of the year.”
“It’s really humbling,” she said, “when you see what others have done to sacrifice while serving their country.”
