Throughout the year, Culver’s of Valparaiso is dedicated to serving the Valparaiso community. For many years, Culver’s has partnered with Hilltop Neighborhood House and put up a Christmas tree in its restaurant decorated with ornaments and paper angels donning the names of kids from Hilltop who are in need. Culver’s customers are invited to take a name off the tree and shop for the child represented by the paper angel.
General Manager Blake Boyer is happy that Culver’s could partner with Hilltop once again this year to host an Angel Tree and provide Christmas gifts for children after he was not certain it would work out.
“Hilltop wasn’t sure if they were going to do it with COVID-19 going on, but they did reach out to us. We put together a plan that would work for both parties, and we’re still honoring that tradition,” Boyer said.
Boyer is appreciative of the opportunity to help kids and bring the community’s attention to how Culver’s is impacting local children so they can get involved in the effort.
“I’m hoping it will bring awareness to the community that Culver’s is hosting this again and looking out for children in need in the community and trying our best to provide for them,” he said. “We want to offer them choices when it comes to the holidays and parents not being able to get certain things for their children that they might want or need.”
While this annual holiday giveback is a well-known community outreach, it is not the only way Culver’s devotes itself to helping the community throughout the year. Occasionally, in the past, Culver’s staff has also gone to local high school football and basketball games and given out free custard. More frequently, Culver’s has been known to host share nights.
“We have events called share nights where non-profit organizations can come in and run orders out in non-COVID-19 times,” Boyer said. “A percentage of the sales made in the time they are doing that would then go toward whatever organization was holding the event. A lot of times, it is one of the high schools or elementary schools. In regular times, we try to do share nights once a week, but sometimes we’ll do it twice a week. We still do some share nights, but the volunteers will not come in and help us out. They will just do all the advertising instead, and we get a lot of foot traffic in that way.”
To help people social distance and stay healthy, Culver’s has done fewer share nights since the pandemic started, but Boyer is glad they could continue with that in some capacity until things return to normal.
To learn more about has Culver’s gives back to support children and youth in the community, visit https://www.culvers.com/.
