From Supporting The Military And First Responders To Nurturing Its Relationship With The Monks Next Door, Callahan & Nannini Has A Legacy Of Giving.
By Therese Dunphy
With the holiday season approaching, Salisbury Mills, N.Y.-based Callahan & Nannini Quarry is once again preparing to participate in the Trees for Troops program. Trees for Troops, a program of the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, provides free, farm-grown Christmas trees to United States armed forces members in all branches of the military.
For 15 years, the quarry served as a collection point for trees. “The military is something that’s a huge component to the area,” explained Leigh Nannini, community and relations manager. “We have West Point and Stuart Air Force Base nearby, so it’s a big part of the community.”
Over the last 15 years, the quarry has collected 10,000 trees that have been distributed to military families. In addition to being a wonderful way to give back to the neighboring community, the event has acted as a team building event for the quarry, its customers, and its vendors.
“We grew to be the largest collection point in New York state – using our contacts within the construction and mining industry to help this cause,” Leigh explained. “Our peers definitely show up. The generosity is always incredible. Though we aren’t serving as a collection point this year, we are still donating. This program has a special place in our hearts, having veterans in both our family and employee base. We plan to continue our contributions for years to come.”
Supporting First Responders
Another way the company supports the surrounding communities is through Touch A Truck events, particularly those affiliated with local schools and the fire department.
“It’s a fundraiser for them, and we’ve been doing it for over a decade,” she said. “We usually vary it up. Sometimes, we bring a loader. Sometimes, we bring a different piece of equipment. It’s always a hit with the kids. A lot of the kids are so curious. We’re around this stuff every day, but the kids’ faces just light up when they see the equipment.”
Rob Nannini, her brother and a vice president in the corporation, said the quarry installed a dry hydrant in the pit, at the company’s expense, to support the fire department and provide better access to water for its neighbors. “We’re in a rural area, so it’s a lot easier to come here to get water than to go out of town to a hydrant,” he said.
Several weekends a year, the fire department visits the quarry and trains to ensure knowledge of how to back the fire truck into the quarry and tests the fittings to make sure the equipment is all in good working order.
Facilitating Meditation
One of the most unique aspects of Callahan & Nannini’s outreach program is how it interacts with one of its closest neighbors – the Won Kak Sa Buddhist temple.
During construction of the monastery, many elements were shipped overseas in sea containers. With many of those pieces being heavy items such as decorative granite pieces, the monastery used forklifts and machinery to unload the containers.
“We would help them offload some of those trailers if they were underpowered,” Rob recalled. “We would go down a lot and help them unload all these heavy materials.”
The Callahan & Nannini Quarry also schedules its blasts around the Won Kak Sa Buddhist temple’s meditation hours in the morning, he said, and tries to be conscious of dust and noise. The operation uses white noise back up alarms and built a large berm to screen the two sites from one another.
“It’s quite the dichotomy – meditation and spiritual enlightenment happening on one side of the berm, and mining blasts on the other,” Leigh added. “Despite this wild contrast, we work seamlessly in harmony. Our relationship with the monks is filled with gratitude and mutual respect.”
At a recent 50th anniversary celebration, attended by hundreds of people, the monastery presented the quarry with an award for the protection and development of its new temple. “Your neighbors don’t always like you as a quarry, but these neighbors like us enough to give us an award,” she noted.
“It’s not really hard to try to be a good neighbor,” Rob added. “I understand they don’t want to hear the noise and see the dust, so we try to be conscious of that. You just have to try to see it from their point of view.”
Therese Dunphy has covered the aggregates industry for nearly 30 years, while also serving multiple roles as a public official. As the owner of Stone Age Communications, she provides communications consulting services to help aggregate producers build stronger relationships within the communities they serve. She can be reached at [email protected].