JOHN COFFELT Staff Writer

Each year on Sept. 11, VIAM Manufacturing hosts a presentation ceremony to distribute donations raised by employees for local first responders.

This year, company employees collected $30,000, which was divided evenly among the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department, Coffee County Rescue Squad and the Manchester Fire Department.

“We’ve been doing it for 21 years,” VIAM CEO Keith Hayes said. “This is not company money. It’s all employee raised money.”

Hayes said his employees begin their fundraising efforts for the following year practically the day after the Sept. 11 ceremony. Bake sales and change banks at work stations are some of the ways VIAM employees collect funds throughout the year.

“It started in 2002 after 9/11, and our goal was to raise $911 in pennies,” Hayes said.

VIAM overshot that goal by several hundred dollars, making them even more excited to see what they could accomplish the following year.

“To get our employees charged, the next year we divided them up into teams,” he said. “The winning team will get a day off with pay.”

The effort then grew exponentially – bake sales that could raking in $1,000 in one day became more common. This year, three separate departments raised more than $3,000 each.

Hayes said that the peak collection was $40,000, but the pandemic set things back. Now the plant is returning to its pre-COVID level of giving.

“I’m proud our employees get behind this,” Hayes said. “It’s easy for a company to give money. We’re upwards of $2.5 million that we’ve given to Coffee County in (almost) 25 years.”

With a young workforce, the ceremony and the fundraiser is a chance to remember the attacks of 2001.

State Sen. Janice Bowling said, “This helps them here again to remember what our nation went through.”

Bowling was present at the ceremony, with County Commissioner Jimmy Hollandsworth.

Hollandsworth noted that twentysomethings were babies when the World Trade Center was attacked.