Bristol Myers Squibb Legal Beagles Tackle 5,000 Feet of Overgrown Flora Along the LHT

A volunteer day reunited 24 legal team members for a morning of hard work along the trail their employer helped create!

BMS Volunteers, Photo by Ethan Gordon

In February 2002, Bristol Myers Squibb invited a group of community representatives to discuss the idea of a trail that would connect the company’s campuses in Lawrence and Hopewell, along with a third proposed site on Princeton Pike. From this meeting the idea of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail was born.

Nearly 20 years later, Bristol Myers Squibb employees came out to the LHT to provide care and maintenance to the trail they helped make possible. Twenty-four volunteers from the biopharma company’s legal department — including attorneys and other staff — took a break from their regular day-to-day tasks to volunteer on the LHT last month.

BMS’s legal beagles, including Christine Alonso, Director, U.S. Commercial Regulatory Affairs, Oncology (above), spent a full morning raking and clearing vegetation along the LHT’s Mount Rose Distillery segment, taking advantage of their employer’s generous provision of two days each year to volunteer for a nonprofit organization in their community. Together, the volunteers tackled about 5,000 feet of trail — wrestling down pesky vines and other overgrown flora.

This location’s event was organized by Adrienne Giordano, Cardiovascular Counsel, in collaboration with Kristie Fischer, Administrator of the Helping Hands Volunteer Program. The pair expressed appreciation for the LHT as not only an opportunity to get outside and connect the corporate campuses and the community but as a perfect venue for BMS volunteer days.

Aside from this being an opportunity to give back and enjoy the outdoors, the volunteer event was a chance for BMS employees to unofficially reunite. Many have been working from home for many months and have only just begun regularly returning to the office. Six of the participants were meeting their office mates for the very first time, having accepted jobs with the company over the course of COVID-19 pandemic.

A big thank you to our friends at Bristol Myers Squibb — for 20 years of planning, stewardship, and weed whacking!

Zachary Stolow, Photo by Ethan Gordon