I think the EOC values have dramatically affected our view on what our role is in the community and what we hope to accomplish. Um you know many times an entrepreneur thinks about the community as uh people who buy their goods and services. It's very exchangeoriented and you know what can we do to have people use us to to become uh part of our revenue and for the EOC the idea is all about relationships and so how we've engaged in the community has has been totally affected by our view that you know as an EOS business it's all about these relationships about creating a network where it's not just a relationship between our company and the community but among the community how can we help strengthen the community so that they have begin to have those kind of deep communal relationships that we believe in uh for example we've done a number of uh of things in the last several years that have impacted um community events you know we and and this involves both churches
and and civic organizations everything from the sponsorship of uh community celebration ations at Halloween to to supporting local theater groups from the churches when they put on a musical or a play. You know, you know, what is what is an environmental firm sponsoring a play for? You know, that that's that's what I would get asked by a normal entrepreneur. And we'd say because we're part of the community. you know, everything from tree plantings to uh supporting the restoration of historic buildings in the community because that's the heart and soul of the community.
Um so again, and I've talked previously about the fact that we only try to buy locally even if it costs more. You know, that's that's a direct impact or impacted by the EOC vision. So, so there are just a number of those things. They're they're going on all the time. Uh I remember one time a local Catholic school had a chess uh tournament and they they in a chess team and so they had uh their students be part of that and each of the students had to pay for a chessboard and there was a fee for entering tournaments and all this kind of thing.
And there was a nearby local, I would say urban school that had an interest in chess, but they couldn't afford to be part of this. So, our company helped pay and sponsor for the payment of entry into tournaments and uh and chess boards. That seems like a small thing, but it really wasn't. The purpose was is to allow those two groups to kind of get to know each other because oftentimes we build silos even in our school systems.
And so our our art company was, you know, I would say part of that kind of helping them meet and and a lot of good things came from that. The kids got to know each other and that sort of thing. So so um so this vision of being a community member in my mind is one of the strong components of the EOC. It's about uh it's about developing those those relationships.
