At Terakeet, we’re committed to serving the Syracuse community we call home. Throughout the year, our ‘Keeters engage in a variety of socially responsible activities, from serving on non-profit boards to fundraising for local causes.
One of these programs is Terakeet’s internal charity, known around town as Cause for the ‘Cuse. This group, founded and run entirely by our employees, tirelessly raises funds to provide the children of Syracuse schools (SCSD) with critical supplies. Since 2013, Cause for the ‘Cuse has raised over $80,000 to help more than 20,000 students in 30 schools in the Syracuse City School district. Every dollar raised goes towards buying students the items they need to succeed.
Learn more about how Terakeet gives back.
Maeve Byrne, an Outreach Team Lead at Terakeet who also serves as Co-Chair on Cause for the ‘Cuse said, “The efforts we’re making for these kids mean more than we could ever realize. We take for granted basic things like warm clothing, hygiene supplies, even pencils and paper – but these things can often be the difference between a child being able to thrive in school or not.”
Cause for the ‘Cuse organizes and hosts several fundraising events throughout the year, the largest of which is the annual Sweater Party. This year, our crew hit the ground running, securing donations from local businesses and papering the downtown area with flyers.
To kick off the festivities, our office held an in-office contest to determine who would win the grand prize of “Ugliest Holiday Sweater.”We love all the hard work and creativity that our employees put into the contest and it’s a great way to start the day! First, second and third-place prizes were gift cards donated by Wolff’s Biergarten for winners to use at the event.
Many ugly sweater hopefuls threw their hat into the ring, but it was a surprise entry by Lilly Hassett that swept the competition. Thankfully, Lilly told her person, Kevin Hassett (Senior Technical Project Manager) to donate her winnings to the bar tab (maybe next time, we’ll limit the entries to “human-only,” but don’t tell her that!)
‘Keeters sported their ugly sweaters and headed down to Wolff’s Biergarten – which has generously hosted the event each year since its inception – for drinks, food, and a raffle held by Santa Claus himself! 50 local businesses donated raffle prizes this year, varying from gift cards and merch to sports memorabilia and experiences. One of the big-ticket items for the night was a pair of coveted tickets to the Syracuse-Duke basketball game, generously donated by Terakeet’s founder, MacLaren Cummings. Many party-goers had their eye on the prize, but it was one of our newest employees, Dan Saita (Senior Project Manager) who took the Duke tickets home. With the evening underway, we were ecstatic to see not only familiar faces from around the office filtering in, but more and more attendees from the local area as well.
The community pulled together, and the event brought in over $2,000 – and our yearly fundraising total to more than $17,000 raised.
Maeve continued, “The sweater party is the largest event not only in terms of the effort that goes into it but also in terms of the amount raised by a single event. It’s something that both the guests and Cause for the ‘Cuse members look forward to every year! We work really hard to partner with known and loved businesses like Wolff’s and Dino BBQ in order to throw the best event possible and spend months leading up to it securing donations from other businesses for our raffle. It’s our last hurrah for the year, so we have to make it count!”
So what’s next? Cause for the ‘Cuse is heading out in full force to purchase items and expects to start delivering donations to every school in the district in the early weeks of the new year. The continued success of events like the Sweater Party means that Terakeet is able to help more children in more schools.
We’re incredibly thankful to our growing Terakeet family every year for their support of this cause, but even more so looking back at the impact we’ve had for the children of our community. Each one of our employees is committed to making a positive impact. We’re incredibly proud to be able to take such an active role in helping our city’s children succeed.