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Transland in Missouri. We’re in the ‘best practice’
group with them, called the TPP — the Transportation
Profitability Program,” Wolfrum said.
“You present a best idea at each one of our
meetings. This is actually one of their ideas, to
have a charity truck where every mile the truck
drives, we donate. In this case, it’s three cents
per mile to the cause,” he said. “They had a couple
trucks that they’ve done that with in the past.
We really thought it was a great idea.”
Keller had already developed a culture of
philanthropy, having launched a veterans’ foundation
that has garnered the support of the local
community to the tune of $300,000 over six
years. Given that track record, a charity truck
felt like a good fit — provided they could come
up with the right cause. Wanting the widest buyin
possible, company leadership turned to the
workforce for input.
“We surveyed our employees, first thing,”
Wolfrum said. “We put the idea out there and
said, ‘We’re going to do this charity truck idea.
We’ve not preselected any charity or foundation.
Let us know what affects you.’ We got a ton of
results in, and I’ll say an overwhelming majority
mentioned autism affecting their lives in one
way or another.
“So, it was pretty clear to us that that’s what
we wanted to do,” he explained. “At that point,
we went to work doing some research and trying
to understand the best way to go about it,
from the design and what we wanted to support.
That’s kind of how that all started.”
The truck hit the road in September 2020
and since then has racked up 40,000 miles. Wolfrum
said the decision was made to let the truck
preach awareness rather than promote a specific
organization, with the money going to projects
that have a local impact.
“We had someone local in the community
who reached out to me who has a child with
autism,” he said. “We have what’s called a
splash pad, a local park with all the water
toys and all that. There’s no fence around this
splash pad, and children with autism tend to
wander and they’re kind of hard to contain
sometimes.
“So, our first project we’re taking on is we’re
going to build a fence around this splash pad,
probably in the spring, and we’re going to fund
that partially from the funds of this truck,” he
continued. “The cost of that is probably going to
be a little bit more than what we’ve contributed
this first year with the truck alone, so we’re going
to lead the fundraising efforts and get some
other companies in the community involved to
finalize that project.”
Response to the truck has been so good, company
leadership followed it up with a specially
wrapped trailer, this time bringing awareness to
domestic violence and human trafficking. The
idea was brought to Keller’s management by
the local chapter of anti-domestic violence nonprofit
Zonta International.
Lacey Spangler, a member of the local organization
praised the company for getting on
board with the effort, adding that the eye-catching
graphics, which include a hotline number to
report incidents of trafficking or for victims of
abuse to get help, can save lives.
Features February 15-28, 2021 • 25
Courtesy: Thomas E. Keller Trucking
Response to Keller’s “charity truck” was so good that the company leadership followed
it up with a specially wrapped trailer, this time bringing awareness to domestic violence
and human trafficking.
“I think that just shows great initiative on
their part, to help with an issue that is ongoing
and that does involve the trucking industry,”
Spangler said. “There’s so much involved with
trafficking that can occur in trucks, with trucking
as a front. I think it says a lot [about Keller] to be
involved in the community and to help the community
and then, to stand up and say we realize
this is an issue and we’re going to put ourselves
out there to help bring some light to it.
“We want people to know there is help out
there,” she said. “Putting that information on a
truck that drives across the state and across the
country really gets that message out there.”
The company plans to keep the charity truck
in circulation at least until the rig is traded out,
usually after five years of service. Regardless,
Wolfrum said, the spirit of community service
and philanthropy will always be part of how the
company does business.
“We support our employees who are in the
community, and it comes full circle,” he said.
“We’ve got a ton of social media interaction
on this — and while that wasn’t intent per se,
it shows we’ve got people looking out for the
truck. They see the truck, they go on our Facebook
page and post. We just really get great acceptance
to it.
“We’ve always been committed to our employees
first and then our community. The support
that we’ve seen from this has really been
overwhelming,” he concluded. 8
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