Live United Heroes: Tom Simons and Todd Baird

In early October, you didn’t need to be a social scientist to know, beyond a doubt, that something had changed in the latest economic swandive. The calls and emails coming into United Way for help not only came with greater frequency, they had a different tenor. I remember clearly sitting across the table from Tom Simons and Todd Baird of PARTNERS +simons on October 6th and trying to find the words to explain the situation growing in front of us. United Way had set up the Community Support Fund, a public drive to respond to the sharp increases in need throughout Massachusetts. Our challenge was, in the thick of an uncertain economy, we had to ask individuals to give even more. We posed the question to Tom and Todd. How to you compel someone to give in a time when everyone is facing tightened budgets? Not only did we ask them to take on that challenge, we asked them to do it for free.

This is the part where we all held our breath.

As I’ve thought about individuals for these LIVE UNITED nominations it has become clear: So often what separates a standard life from the heroic is the simple decision to act. It took Tom Simons no longer than the span of a breath to commit himself and his award-winning team, which included Writer Jane Roper, Producer Debbie Easdon, photographer Anthony Henriques and Art Directors Laura Hanson and Marie Grieco, to our effort. It was done without any ceremony. With only a quiet and firm sense of what was the right thing to do.

After that decision point, the script wrote itself. PARTNERS +simons came up with concepts that were more gripping than we could have imagined, and they have treated the project with the focus and commitment of major account. They are, I believe, personally invested in the cause and the need to ensure that local children and families do not go hungry, cold or homeless this winter. It takes a lot to step out of your day to day professional life to give a quiet movement a platform from which to speak. Tom Simons and Todd Baird did that for us this year and for that, we call them LIVE UNITED heroes.

To learn more about Tom (left), Todd (right) or PARTNERS +simons as a whole, check out their blog.You can see samples of their Community Support Fund work below.