NECA Celebrates 100th Anniversary With Community Service.

John Grau, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Electrical Contractors Association, Bethesda, Maryland, knows a good idea when he sees one. So when he observed how another association marked a landmark anniversary with a community service project, he realized that a similar focus might work well when it came time to celebrate NECA's 100th anniversary. "I thought it was a nice touch to have something where you give back to the community after 100 years instead of just thinking about all the things you'll do internally," Grau recalls.

To commemorate its 100th anniversary in 2001, NECA decided to focus on children and safety by creating a monthlong public service program, "Born for Safety." NECA chapters nationwide distributed 320,000 electrical safety kits throughout May, which is National Electrical Safety Month, primarily to hospitals to be given to families with newborns; some chapters gave the kits to day-care centers.

Each kit contains a dozen electrical outlet caps. More than 2,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year from accidents involving electrical outlets, according to the Consumer and Product Safety Commission, which endorsed the NECA program. NECA's annual convention in October will feature a segment on the achievements of the "Born for Safety" public service program.

"It was positive publicity for the association," Grau says of the program. "It was a chance to do something special and create some goodwill. 'Born for Safety' also helped publicize the 100th [anniversary] for our members, which was important in getting them involved. The program has even helped establish relationships between hospitals and some of our members and chapters. A number of chapters may even continue [purchasing and donating the safety caps] on their own in the future."

Perhaps the trickiest part of "Born for Safety" for NECA was figuring out where four semitrailer loads of the safety kits could be delivered for distribution once they had been manufactured. Realizing that its shipping department could not handle such a large volume, NECA eventually was able to find a member electrical distributor willing to donate warehouse space that would only charge NECA for shipping the kits to chapters. "Some of the things that you're not used to dealing with [as an association]--having a product manufactured and distributing it--was a whole new ball game," says Grau. "We probably spent more time figuring that out than anything."