Mercy Care volunteers give back to elementary school teachers, students

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - With the start of many Valley schools just a month away, Mercy Care volunteers are doing their part to make sure teachers and students enter the new school year with the supplies they could need.

"Doing what we as employees do best, reaching out to the community, helping those who need us the most, serving our membership," Christi Lundeen said.

It's all thanks to the joining of two companies; Mercy Care and Mercy Maricopa Integrated Care. To honor that union, employees are giving back, and today's mission hits a little closer to home for Lundeen, who's Mercy Care's chief innovation officer.

"We're really excited to be here at Madrid Elementary School," she said. "Me, myself, I'm super excited because I went here."

Volunteers rolled up their sleeves to pack boxes of school supplies, clean desks, and spruce up classrooms. It's just a small part of their "Week of Mercy."

Madrid principal Stacy O'Rourke says she's so thankful for the helping hands.

"I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have Mercy Care here today," she said. "As you can see, it's a huge job and the idea is we want a teacher to come in and be able to take everything they need to their classroom to get the year started and not have to worry about that."

By volunteering their time to give back each day for this week, these volunteers hope to prove to the community they really do care.

"Our kiddos deserve it, we want to give them everything they need to be successful because we want them to be successful in school," O'Rourke said.