Donald Trump is being sworn in on Friday, and The Women’s March On Washington is one of the biggest and best responses to his controversial inauguration. Many people are taking the time off of work to travel to D.C. to take a stand, even though it isn’t an easy venture by any means. One company, however, is working to make the desires of their employees a little more accessible.
Burton Snowboards is a Vermont based sporting goods company, and their CEO, Donna Carpenter, is putting her money where her mouth is and offering to pay for two nights of hotels and airfare up to $250 for any employee who wishes to attend the march with her on Saturday. She told Cosmopolitan:
I knew there would be a lot of Burton women who were making the effort to get down to Washington. They’re that type of people. We’re in Vermont, in Bernie-land. I had a lot of employees who were volunteering for Bernie [Sanders]. But it’s a long way from Burlington to Washington, D.C. For me, it’s all about numbers. What they need are numbers to make a point.
Carpenter explained that so far there were 25 people who had taken her up on her offer, and that her passion for equal rights has been longtime thing. However, it was whipped into even more of a fervor following this election, which “felt like a slap in the face.”
I have been working on the issue of gender equality at Burton for 13 years now. It’s been a passion of mine to find more women leaders internally and externally, and to make sure that women feel that they’re as much a part of the snowboarding community as men are.
No matter your political affiliations, it certainly is nice to see a business leader take a genuine interest in their employees and to use their resources to make often marginalized voices heard.
(Via Cosmopolitan)
