BDSmktg’s passion to give back to the community continues to grow as the agency looks to find additional ways to show support for various philanthropic causes. Looking to play a bigger role within the local community, BDS established the BDS Gives Back Committee: a 10 member team that includes both BDS employees and partners. This committee will lead the agency’s efforts in supporting local area charitable organizations, with a goal to share time, voices, ideas, support, and donations. For the month of June, the BDS Gives Back Committee expanded on its long-time partnership with the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and focused on raising awareness for their mission to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

RockOneSock Campaign

BDSmktg has been a supporter of NCMEC for over a decade and was proud to continue its support for NCMEC by participating in two events that helped generate awareness and donations in support of the amazing work that NCMEC does. For the first event, BDS participated in NCMEC’s annual #RockOneSock Campaign. To bring awareness to missing children and their families all over the country, NCMEC started a nationwide social media campaign where they encourage everyone to post a picture of themselves rocking one crazy sock and use the hashtag #RockOneSock to stand in solidarity with missing children.

While missing children’s issues do not affect everyone, BDSers wanted to show their support by posting a multitude of creative #RockOneSock photos on social media with the hashtag #BDSGivesBack. BDSers took part by showing off their one sock in a large group photo taken on National Missing Children’s Day. BDS’ participation in the #RockOneSock campaign garnered traction across several social media platforms.

Cruisin’ for the Kids Fundraiser

In the past, BDS has supported NCMEC in a variety of ways, including attending the annual NCMEC fundraiser gala held during CES and donating our services to help process auction shipments after the event. However, this year, we wanted to take it a step farther and host our own event to raise funds for the organization. On June 5^th, BDS hosted its first event in partnership with NCMEC and Cruisers Pizza Bar Grill: the Cruisin’ for the Kids fundraising event! This all-day fundraiser was held at Cruisers Pizza Bar Grill in Newport Beach, where Cruisers generously donated 25% of the day’s proceeds directly to NCMEC. As an additional avenue to raise more funds, a silent auction was held from 5 – 9 PM, where donated items such as a GoPro 5, Disneyland Hopper Passes, and Duffy Boat rides were bid on by the restaurant’s patrons, BDSers, and NCMEC supporters.

The Cruisin’ for the Kids fundraiser raised $7,560 and counting to aid in NCMEC’s mission to continue helping children over the country. If you couldn’t attend our Cruisin’ for the Kids fundraiser but would still like to help, you can still support missing children and their families by donating at https://give.classy.org/CruisinForTheKids. This event would not have been possible without the support of our employees, families and friends and without the generous donations of our clients and community friends.

Interested in the work that NCMEC does? Feel free to visit their website at www.missingkids.com to see their amazing work in action.