It has become a Burton tradition to celebrate the Christmas holiday with peers (and often their spouses) visiting our Alpharetta office for an end-of-year meeting, Company Dinner and Sandwich Day. Our team now spans the U.S. from east to west and north to south, with colleagues based in North Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota, Illinois, Louisiana, Arizona and California. And we have expanded our Operations team in Puerto Rico to six analysts.
What exactly is Sandwich Day? It is a special day where the Burton team comes together to assemble turkey and ham sandwiches for distribution throughout Atlanta to those less fortunate. Last year we made around 4,100 sandwiches, and we set our goal this year at 5,000. The final tally… 5,080 – that’s a lot of ham, turkey, cheese and bread!
Sandwich Day is a festive event, filled with Christmas music, coffee and pastries to get us started, pizza for a midday break, and then after the work is done a celebratory beverage or two at a local pub. It is a fitting end to the year and allows us to enjoy each other’s company while giving something back to our community. It is one of my favorite days of the year!
So how did all of this get started? Our first client, FelCor Lodging Trust, teamed together with one of their contractors, Landmark Restorations, about 35 years ago to make sandwiches in the Landmark warehouse. In the early days the sandwich of choice was PB&J, and while tasty the ingredients were sometimes a bit messy. We even bought Burton aprons to shield the debris from our clothes! As time evolved, we refined our process and finally changed to ham and turkey around 2015. And since then, the Burton team has been a high quality/ high quantity sandwich making machine!
This year marked my 25th year of Sandwich Day. I’m grateful to FelCor for introducing me to this fun event, and appreciative for my Burton colleagues to continue the tradition. I hope it carries on for many more years with a positive impact on our community.
Lastly, I am writing this after having completed another successful Sandwich Day immersed in ham and turkey. My only request for dinner? Please pass the chicken!
