?That?s Who We Are? (Opinion)

There’s a YouTube video with unnerving footage from May 22.

It’s shot from inside a Joplin convenience store, where a group of people rode out the F-5 tornado that leveled one third of the city and ultimately left 156 dead. The clip is entitled “First Person Video of Joplin MO tornado 5/22/11.”

Most of it is shot in the dark. All of it is surreal.

There’s another that contains the most comprehensive look at the mile-wide, six-mile-long path of destruction: “U2 Where the Streets Have No Name – Joplin Tornado Version.”

No footage does justice to seeing it in person. The clips only give a semblance of the tragedy and a pretext for the days that followed.

When the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal asked Tyson Foods Inc. to chronicle its experiences providing disaster relief in Joplin, there was hesitation at the thought of trivializing the extraordinary. The real heroes survived fury-flung debris and lost loved ones. They fought crazy rain and heat while working marathon search and rescue shifts.

We just fed people.

There is a legitimate interest, however, in the case for businesses giving back. Economics being what they are, leaders want to know that there’s real value in efforts that don’t immediately pencil.

The good news is you don’t have to be a Fortune 100 firm like Tyson Foods to make a difference. Service is mostly about showing up.

Our 10 cook crews learned that while feeding all comers for two weeks at Joplin’s ground zero.

Early on May 23, Tyson Team Members from three Missouri and five Arkansas communities began converging on the post-storm chaos. We ultimately dispatched four tractor trailers and a bob truck filled with more than 120,000 pounds of protein and tortillas. Tyson Foods also sent ice, water, and other supplies too numerous to name.

Our teams cooked mostly for emergency workers and survivors. The first week was filled with heart-breaking images of debris, exhausted volunteers and the faces of those shocked both that the unthinkable had happened to them – and that they’d survived.

It’s difficult to grasp the void of basic necessities through a TV set. We fed people who hadn’t eaten in two days. One of those was a 79-year-old woman who survived curled and praying in her bathtub. She would only take a little food, saying, “Someone else needs it more than I.”

Our Monett, Mo., facility put together gallon Zip-locks for families, stuffed with tooth brushes, a box of Band-Aids, tissues, soap, tooth paste, wash cloths and Teddy bears. Each time a scared and hungry child clung to one of those plastic bags it was better than Christmas.

There were as many poignant stories as chicken breasts grilled. We helped workers power up with protein and focus on rescues, but Tyson Foods by no means was the only company doing its part.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., for example, committed $1 million for the Joplin relief effort including a $500,000 cash gift to the American Red Cross and Salvation Army. Sam’s Club donated $200,000 to Joplin’s United Way, and the rest was given through in-kind products.

Like Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods has had a busy 2011 in disaster relief. We provided more than 503,000 pounds of protein to northern Alabama, Emporia, Kan., Vicksburg, Miss., Joplin and North Carolina. That doesn’t include aide near Sioux City, Iowa, where flooding and relief efforts are ongoing.

Internal and external relationships and perceptions are forever changed when you work together to make a real difference. You can’t duplicate that at a corporate retreat.

One of the most lasting things for me from Joplin was getting to spend time working alongside Stacy Miller, plant manager of Tyson Foods’ Chick-N-Quick facility in Rogers. While frantically trying to keep pace with our serving lines, he urged Team Members to pile the plates high.

“Feed ’em like you want to be fed, folks,” Miller said. “Feed ’em like family.”

That attitude is pervasive here, where stewardship and feeding families are written in our core company values. Stacy said something else that’s stuck with me during an impromptu interview on this video from Joplin: http://bit.ly/tsnjoplin.

When asked to make the case for why Tyson Foods showed up in Joplin, he simply said, “That’s what we do. That’s who we are.” 

Jeffrey Wood is a manager of community relations for Tyson Foods Inc. and may be reached via [email protected]