For a little change of pace, we would like to take some time to talk about how the firm gives back, and what our plans are for this year. It’s something that’s very important to us, and we have made a number of efforts over the years to try to expand what we are able to do here at Langella & Langella. We don’t see these sort of efforts as any sort of “corporate governance” exercise, or anything like that. To us, it’s more like trying to use our platform for things we believe in.

Every initiative like this starts small. And the first idea that we felt we could get off the ground was to try spearheading a Thanksgiving season food drive. And thankfully, this is now something that we do every year. We really value all of the gifts and donations that our clients and partners have made to this effort, and we anticipate that this year’s food drive will be our best yet. If you plan to drop by our offices in the near future, why not bring some canned goods or other non-perishable items with you? We greatly appreciate any of you who choose to contribute this year, and we hope that this spirit of charity is contagious!

While we love that we now have a successful food drive as part of our charity efforts, we thought that this year was the right year to make some additional steps, and choose to help a cause that was important to us. That cause is the Ana Grace Project, linked here. We found Ana’s story, and the efforts of her surviving family members to be something that was truly inspirational to us, as it is hard to imagine great new projects stemming forth from something so horrible and tragic as the Sandy Hook Incident in 2012.

That people could band together in the memory of someone taken from us so unbelievably young, and use that young girl’s memory to better help their community learn from those horrible experiences, speaks volumes about the people involved. We are extremely happy to know that every dollar we contribute to that group will be used in such a noble pursuit. And we hope that this is just the start of what we are able to do in the future, to help organizations just like the Ana Grace Project.

To wrap up, we hope that each and every one of you finds your own way to embody the spirit of giving this year. Our communities depend on the generosity and empathy of the people within them that have the means to help. We would also love to hear from you, as to what your charitable plans are for this year, and the years to come.