OTA.COM 9 COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD CASSIE CYPERS & SCOTT ERICKSON CLIF BAR & COMPANY When it comes to cultivating community, Clif Bar’s Cassie Cypers (Senior Sustainable Brand Development Manager) and Scott Erickson (Executive Chef of “Kali’s Kitchen”) believe in going above and beyond. Because of their passion and dedication, both Cassie and Scott are the first honorees to receive OTA’s new Community Service Award. This award was created to recognize individuals and companies who have gone above and beyond standard business practices to become a source of positivity and stability for customers and organic community members during the COVID pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, Clif Bar has demonstrated compassion and creativity. The company has directed vast resources toward pandemic response efforts, found innovative ways to continue serving customers and community members, and shown care and concern for its employees by enhancing benefits and prioritizing health and safety. Within Clif Bar, Cassie and Scott are on the front lines of these inspirational community service efforts. “At Clif Bar, serving our community is at the core of who we are as a company. The pandemic has created a critical need to sustain people in our community and we are fortunate to have been able to use our resources to help people in need,” says Cassie. “We are inspired to serve our community and knowing we can make a positive impact on people’s lives makes us want to give even more.” Recently promoted to Senior Sustainable Brand Development Manager from her former role as Senior Manager, Community Philanthropic Partnerships, Cassie has spent the last several years leading Clif Bar’s community service efforts. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Cassie has been on the frontline of Clif ’s community COVID response efforts. Under her leadership, Clif has donated 14 million nutritious bars to first responders and food insecure communities (another 14 million were donated over 2021!), and worked with farmworkerfocused non-profit organizations to deploy over $300,000 in PPE to farmworkers across California, where Clif Bar is headquartered. Cassie has been a valued member of the Clif team for over 26 years. Scott is a Bay-area resident and has been with Clif Bar for 11 years. As Executive Chef for Clif Bar’s employee café, it’s Scott’s job to keep staff fed well. When the pandemic struck, Scott made it his mission to not just feed Clif ’s employees, but to also care for his fellow community members. Rather than shut down the café during the pandemic, he kept his staff on and pivoted from providing lunch to in-office staff to making meals for at-risk neighbors by launching the Kali’s Community Kitchen Program. To help him maximize his impact, Scott also partnered with Oakland-based community organization Homies for Empowerment and their FREEdom Store as well as Oakland Unified School District. “With food insecurity increasing dramatically during the pandemic, one of the many projects our Clif culinary team took on was to pack weekly homecooked meals for 400 hundred volunteers for the Oakland Unified School District,” says Scott. “These meals were made at our headquarters in Emeryville, using ingredients grown right in our Clif garden. Volunteers helped us to manage 22 local food distribution sites, ensuring that students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch were still getting those meals while schools were closed.” Together, Scott and his partners have provided roughly 300,000 meals to date!
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