In June of 2019, Lockaway Storage team members from across San Antonio rallied together at the Culebra Road location for the second annual Stuff the UNIT Event on June 2, 2019.

After a successful month of raising money and food donations for the San Antonio Food Bank, the final push was about more than winning a prize for the most donations raised. The competition between the districts lead to the biggest donation to date from Lockaway Storage, nearly doubling the donations from 2018 and providing more than 50,000 meals for San Antonio’s residents who are most in need of food.

Saying it was a hot day at Lockaway Storage - Culebra during the Stuff the UNIT event would be an understatement. It was scorching! The high temperature according to the local weather report was 103 degrees.

Thank you to our self storage professionals who made it to the event and were able to smile cheerfully, hold signs by the road, and make this event great despite the blazing elements!

While the weather may have encouraged some folks to stay in the air conditioning of their home or work, there were plenty of others in the community that were prepared to make donations.

The manager of Lockaway Storage - Culebra said he was satisfied with the turnout, “There were definitely people stopping by dropping off cans. There was a bounce house, music playing and corn hole. Everybody was really enjoying themselves even though the weather was hot.”

One particular guest that made an appearance was none other than The San Antonio Missions’ mascot, Ballapeno the jalapeno! Ballapeno bee-bopped around the facility where he greeted fans and even played a few games of corn hole.

“Everybody was chipping in! Even the Missions’ mascot stopped by and was out there in the heat for a little bit,” the manager said in disbelief. “Ballapeno gave us some free tickets to hand out too!”

All Hands on Deck

All of the team members who attended truly played a critical role in the success of the event. The assistant manager at Lockaway Storage - Shaenfield, arrived early with her sweet baby strapped securely to her torso.

While she knew that she wouldn’t be able to help out like she had the previous year, she made sure she was able to contribute in a different way.

“I wanted to show my support to the team and show that Shaenfield was there. With me having a baby, I was worried about people not providing baby stuff. Babies need to eat too,” they said. “Not too many people provided us with that sort of thing, so I went out and got some baby food and brought it to the event. It’s a surreal feeling as a mom knowing that that could be my child in need. With school being out, they don’t have the funds to feed the kids. It’s not something that can be taken lightly.”

"Other parents brought their children to participate in the event as well." they said, the San Antonio District Manager at Lockaway Storage, was accompanied by her two daughters as they went door to door for donations.

“They walked to the gas station next door. Some people bought food from the gas station and donated it to us,” they said. “Then they got some donations from other local business. One of her daughters collected $62 dollars just from doing that.”

As the day wore on, donations continued to come in and so did customers and surrounding community members looking for the source of the savory smells of hamburgers and hotdogs coming from the grill.

The Final Numbers

The Lockaway Storage human resources administrator, proudly stated the exact totals from the food drive, “We collected 3,453 food items, and $5,333.”

After doing the customary “weigh-in” at the Food Bank to determine how many meals these numbers translated to, it turns out that the Lockaway Storage San Antonio districts were able to donate 51,204 meals in total!

Everyone was ecstatic to learn that they had almost doubled their meal total from the previous year in 2018! However, they also wanted to know which team ended up collecting the most donations. The biggest contributor and winner of the most donations went to Lockaway Storage - Culebra.

So how did they do it? Part of the Culebra team’s success came down to encouraging cash donations first, then filling their barrels with food items.

“I know that cash donations alone at our location were around $1,500. I was just trying to hit $1,000 so anything over that I wasn’t paying attention to,” they said surprised. “When it came to barrels, I just focused on filling up a couple barrels, so being the winner is pretty cool!”

Lockaway Storage confirmed that Culebra had won the company competition, and talked about the other teams that came very close winning too.

“Lockaway Storage - Culebra did get the most donations, and then Lockaway Storage - Babcock was close behind. Then Lockaway Storage - Woodlake followed them with some great numbers,” they said. “They were all on different district manager teams, so we sort of pitted everyone against each other which was a lot of fun and I think they enjoyed it.”