The annual BBQ event at Westminster Hall offers colleagues a chance to greet, meet, and eat while serving up a huge portion of appreciation across the department.
Photo: From left, Lisa Crawley, Danielle Hill, and Bianca Thornley greet guests as they arrive.
The line stretched out the door and around the block.
It wasn’t a long wait. But when the smell of Mission BBQ is drifting through Westminster Hall, even a few extra minutes can feel like an eternity.
More than 350 Administration and Finance (A&F) employees gathered June 10 for the annual A&F Summer BBQ, filling two lunch sessions with good food, laughter, and conversations among colleagues from across the department.
For many attendees, it’s become one of the highlights of the year, giving them a chance to step away from the workday, reconnect with co-workers, and meet colleagues they might otherwise only know through emails or Microsoft Teams messages.
What most people don’t see, however, is everything that happens long before the first plate of brisket is served.
That work begins months in advance with executive assistant Lisa Crawley.
As project lead for the event, Crawley oversees virtually every aspect of the barbecue, from securing Westminster Hall and coordinating with Mission BBQ to managing registration, arranging volunteers, and ensuring that employees on second and third shifts have opportunities to participate.
“It is, in essence, my baby,” Crawley said. “I oversee the entire event from soup to nuts.”
Although previous years included a planning committee, Crawley largely managed this year’s event with assistance from Danielle Hill, who is a division administrator in International Operations, and a team of day-of volunteers who helped with registration, set up, cleanup, and directing attendees.
The event itself grew from a simple conversation about employee engagement.
“We were just talking about ideas of ways to have employee engagement,” Crawley said. “The BBQ came up because when I worked for Faculty Physicians, Inc., they always had one for the administrative staff. Here we are, three years later.”
Karen Park, MA, MBA, chief of staff and executive director of strategic projects, said the idea fit perfectly with A&F leadership’s desire to strengthen connections across the department.
“The ultimate goal was to bring everybody together, to give everybody an opportunity to really be able to do something fun together,” Park said. “We were always looking for ways to pull the department together so that we could connect, catch up, put faces to names, and do something that wasn’t just technical in support of work operations.”
That vision remains central to the event.
Crawley said the Summer BBQ reflects A&F’s Guiding Principles by demonstrating appreciation for employees while creating opportunities for colleagues to build relationships outside of their work responsibilities.
“This is an effort to show our appreciation for you, to take a little time away from your regular, everyday duties to come and have fellowship with your co-workers or colleagues that you don’t normally interact with,” she said.
Crawley also sees the event as a way to demonstrate respect for the work that employees perform each day.
“This is our way of showing that we respect your efforts, we respect your commitment to our mission,” she said. “It’s just a way of showing that we appreciate you and we value you.”
For attendees, those efforts don’t go unnoticed.
“I joined A&F back in February, so this was a really nice event to get to meet some people and just take some time to actually chat about non-work things,” said Ginger Burcham, MS, facilities lead planner with Real Estate, Planning, and Space Management. “It was a really nice event, very welcoming.”
For employees whose schedules don’t often overlap with co-workers’, the gathering provides a rare opportunity to reconnect.
“I love it every time they throw a little soirée like this,” said Lisa Lee, a security officer with Police and Public Safety. “There’s no congregating on our post, so it’s good to be able to sit down and see everybody that you don’t normally get to see because I work the third shift.
“I like the fact that they think about us enough to do this for us.”
Luke Quell, MS, CPA, CMA, director of business applications, admitted that he comes with a very specific strategy.
“I’m a vegetarian,” Quell said with a laugh. “The mac-and-cheese is absolutely delicious. I show up, and I get two big plates of mac-and-cheese.”
George Byrd, work controller at Westminster Hall, has his own favorite menu item.
“Mission BBQ is one of our favorite caterers,” Byrd said. “The brisket is my favorite. The macaroni-and-cheese, you can’t go wrong with it.”
Behind the scenes, one of Crawley’s priorities is making sure as many employees as possible attend. Holding two lunch sessions helps accommodate A&F’s more than 800 employees, including those working around the clock in Police and Public Safety and Environmental Services.
“We want all 800-plus people to have an opportunity to attend,” Crawley said. “Some people work shifts, so we try to provide that flexibility.”
Organizing an event of this size requires months of planning, but Crawley said seeing employees enjoy themselves makes every detail worthwhile.
“There is a satisfaction in seeing people leave happy, people being able to engage with their colleagues and hearing people say, ‘I can’t wait for the next one.’ It’s something they’re looking forward to,” she said.
“It is satisfying for me in that regard.”