Pac-Van recognizes that our business is very much a part of our local community. For this reason, we have held a silent auction to benefit three local charities as part of our holiday celebration for the past few years. Earlier this fall, nominations for the charities were submitted, and then the employees were asked to vote on their favorites. Although many good causes were nominated, only the top three charities were selected based on the number of employee votes to receive the proceeds from the auctions. Since we have twenty-seven locations nationwide, we hold two separate auctions. One is conducted online and the other is held during the corporate Christmas party here in the Indianapolis headquarters. The auctions feature items donated from our vendors, employees, and items purchased with "points" earned on company credit cards. These charitable gifts ranged from Starbucks coffee delivered to your desk for a week to a Sony digital video camera. Donating fun items like scraping snow off of someone's car for the rest of the winter or cooking dinner for someone's entire family not only brings in the funds for charity, but it helps build relationships within the company. "It's interesting to see the bidding wars that go on, especially when it comes down to seeing who gets to shave the VP of Finance's head," said Ruth Pinnick, Human Resources Manager, "but it's all in good fun, and it goes to very worthy causes." The holiday party at Pac-Van also features a raffle with donated prizes. Employees are able to purchase tickets leading up to the party, and the money from the raffle sales is also included in the donation. Employees are "fined" during this period for wearing certain colors or types of clothing. The "fine" is one dollar but the employee receives a raffle "ticket" so most of the violations and subsequent fines are voluntary. Last year Pac-Van employees raised over $3,000 through our auctions and the company matched each dollar for a total of over $6,000 split among three charities. This year, employees were able to raise over $4,000 during the auction so more than $8,000 will be split equally between Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, Julian Center, and Riley Children's Foundation. We at Pac-Van would like to wish all of our customers, vendors, friends, and families a safe and happy holiday season.