Giving back: A Q&A with Two Men and a Truck Evansville’s Kyle Norcutt and Karen Padilla
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowTwo Men and a Truck Evansville recently won the Humanitarian Award at the moving company’s national conference.
The award honors the franchise with the highest percentage of charity revenue based on total revenue for the year. In 2022, the Evansville location donated more than $29,600 worth of services, man hours and donations.
Kyle Norcutt, the Evansville franchise owner, and Karen Padilla, general manager, spoke with Inside INdiana Business about what makes giving back both important to the community and also a good business move.
Why is giving back a priority for the Two Men and a Truck Evansville franchise?
Norcutt: I think it makes so much sense for our business. Our tagline is “Movers who care.” And when you have able-bodied people who can lift heavy things and you have a big vehicle, you find there’s a lot of charities that need those kinds of services.
Usually, we can schedule around some of our busy season to help people out. We get real busy in the summertime, so it’s great at the end of the year when we’ve got people available with extra time that we can help out.
It’s cool to be able to give back to the community that helps us grow, and we have a lot of visibility when we show up with the truck, so that’s great for us. But it’s also just helping out.
Padilla: To be successful in the community, you’ve got to get back when you can. So when we have some downtime, if someone asks for help, if we can, we’re going to do it.
Where does your drive for charitable work come from?
Padilla: I’d have to say part of it is upbringing, but then there’s been things that happened in my life with family, and there’s always been the community giving back. I’ve always had that in my nature—when I can help, even personally, even if it’s not work, just give back when you can. People helped me before, so why not help them?
Which charities does the Two Men and a Truck Evansville franchise work with?
Padilla: We have several we work with. The major ones are the Salvation Army and the Evansville Rescue Mission. But we’ve helped out Chemo Buddies, the Boys and Girls Club, the Oasis Shelter, the Isaiah Project, It Takes a Village, and the Foundry Center for the Arts. So it’s a little bit of everything.
With the arts, there was a fire there, so we moved some furniture out for them. With It Takes a Village, we got some donations for rescue pets, so we helped the local community with their pets. With the Isaiah Project, we helped out with foster care children, getting stuff that they needed and help picking up stuff for them.
With the Oasis Shelter, the woman’s shelter needed to move their building, and they didn’t have it in their budget. And we had the time to do it, so we moved their entire building from one to the next—the beds, the desks, and stuff like that. Chemo Buddies was a charity event with cancer patients and survivors, and we helped set up tents and donated boxes and tables. Whatever we could do to help. We had Truckie out there to wave to people, to interact with them.
For the Boys and Girls Club, there were a few people in the community that called us saying they wanted to donate an air hockey table and a basketball hoop. We picked that up and sent that over there for them. With the Evansville Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army, we’ve done a lot for them. We donated 1,800 boxes between the two of them. They had certain programs in November and December helping families. With the Evansville Rescue Mission, we helped donate food to 2,200 families. With the Salvation Army, we helped 3,500 families with toys and food.
Norcutt: It’s really cool, too, with the movers that volunteer their time to go out on those moves. They take a lot of pride in that, and you hear them talking about it the next morning on dispatch.
It just kind of builds a really good culture within the company, and you get a feel for who those people are who care that work for you. And that translates over when they’re working with our customers later on, even helping out each other. If a job goes over on time, they’re able to sneak in and help out and finish up that move. It is cool to see them helping out like that.
How did it feel to get the Humanitarian Award at the national Two Men and a Truck Conference?
Norcutt: I was actually on a mission trip with my daughter in the Dominican Republic, so I couldn’t go to the annual meeting where they had it. I thought it was kind of interesting timing.
It’s a calculation of hours and time that’s spent in the size of the franchise. We knew that we were helping out, but we didn’t know we were in the running for that award.
So to wake up the next morning—when you’re in the camp building a school in the middle of nowhere in the Dominican Republic—and learn that you won the Humanitarian Award, that’s cool. It was a big surprise. I don’t know if it was on Karen’s radar either. That’s just who she is, she’s going to help out.
Padilla: I was surprised because being with Two Men and a Truck for 22 years, I’ve never won that award with a location, so I was really surprised. And then right away, I texted the entire office staff with the picture because Scott Bliss (regional director of operations) sent me a picture of it. It was 7 or 8 at night when I got it, and I was just like, oh my God, I have to brag and show everybody.
And I’m like, look what you guys did. … And they loved it. The next day, they showed everyone on the crew. It was amazing they were all like, this is awesome.
Do your other franchises also do humanitarian work?
Norcutt: I have 11 franchises: two in Indiana, four in Michigan and a few out west. We try to shoot for a certain percentage of our overall revenue or billable hours. There are times we can fill in our schedule, and it’s a win-win for us.
It’s definitely on everybody’s radar, trying to see if there’s an organization out there that we can help. And a lot of times, it’s on a national level. We do the Movers for Moms in May that we just wrapped up over Mother’s Day. A lot of the same organizations are nationwide, so we’re kind of helping out the same groups everywhere.
Do your franchisees select their own charities, or do you offer guidance?
Norcutt: I think stuff will come up in weekly meetings, and they come across something. I don’t think that we’ve ever said no to any certain organization. Typically, we want it to (fall under a specific) tax code so we can actually do it on the paperwork for our franchisor.
There’s a lot of times that we’ll come across, you know, a hard-luck situation and find out that they can work through their church. The church will contact us, and then we’ll get it set up that way.
What advice would you give other franchise owners looking to do more charitable work?
Norcutt: There’s so many franchisees in our system that live by the same guiding principles, that they’re there to help out and give back to the community. It’s not uncommon for franchisees to have a ton of people out helping out other organizations, especially at certain times of the year. It’s part of the lifeblood of the franchise.
They’re all involved in the communities that they’re working in.
Padilla: It’s a core value. Everyone believes in it. So each location is definitely doing it.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Padilla: We’re going to be doing a drive at the end of July with the Salvation Army. It’s a school supply drive. We’ll be dropping off boxes at different places where people can donate supplies for the kids for back to school.
Once they’re full, then we’ll take them to Salvation Army, and we’ll give them out to the families again. I’m assuming it’s going to be over 2,000 families. It’s really nice to be part of that.
And then in November and December, we’ll be helping the Evansville Rescue Mission again and the Salvation Army’s Toy Town. So that’s exciting.