Ingalls Shipbuilding: Gulf Coast Santa to Needy

Ingalls Shipbuilding brings holiday cheer to communities through employee donations and $15,000 to local food banks.

Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding division and its employees have participated in holiday giving throughout all of the communities on the Gulf Coast. Hundreds of employees worked together to donate money, food, toys and other special items to several different organizations. The company donated $5,000 and 560 pounds of food to Our Daily Bread food pantry in Pascagoula, $5,000 to the Bay Area Food Bank in Theodore, Ala., and $5,000 and another 300 pounds of food to the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans.

"Through several employee-led holiday donation drives, our employees have once again shown selfless leadership in the communities we call home," said Edmond Hughes, Ingalls' vice president of human resources and administration. "As Mississippi's largest private employer, we take our commitment to community very seriously. We are about to enter our 75th year of building ships, and we understand our role as a good corporate neighbor and obviously our employees do as well. They went above and beyond to ensure a great holiday for a lot a people."

Employee groups held drives to raise money and also to collect food, toys and other items for many various organizations. The Salvation Army's Angel Tree program, along with other adopt-a-family programs, benefitted from employees working at Avondale, Pascagoula and Gulfport operations. Money and toys were collected from many different employee groups to benefit the local U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots campaign. Electrical workers at Avondale raised $1,000 to allow New Orleans Children's Hospital to purchase new diagnostic equipment. Ingalls' Veterans Employee Resource Team collected and shipped 80 Christmas care packages to deployed U.S. troops.