When record floods hit North and South Carolina last week, thousands of local citizens and hundreds of businesses scrambled to handle the fast-rising water which threatened lives, home, and much-needed businesses.

But several Carolina companies turned one of the fastest-growing trends in employee care and concern, using Marketplace Chaplains to help in their company recovery and repair efforts.

The Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Sumtner, South Carolina was shut down for several days during the flood, but Marketplace Chaplains which has served at the plant of a strategic initiative in the Employee Assistance Program helped employees who had lost much during the disasters.

“The Sumter Pilgrim’s Plant is still trying to identify and assist employees with verifiable needs as a result of the South Carolina floods,” said HR manager Mike Crutcher.

“The chaplains are assistant by encouraging the emplo9yhees who suffered a loss to get the necessary information to HR.”

The week-long flood caused millions of dollars in damage both to personal homes and to company businesses like Pilgrim’s Pride and even maroon some Marketplace chaplains by in their homes with fast watching waters, but Marketplace Chaplain Bill Bennett said the trend of workplace chaplains can help at all times.

“We already talked to a number of employees who have been directly affected by the flood and we know that employees always have needs at the workplace. They may not have a literal flood, but we found employees and family members always have a flood of problems in their life.”

In 2015, more than 100 new companies have signed a contract to offer Marketplace Chaplains to their family. More than 3,000 chaplains in the U.S., North American along with Asia and Europe provide workplace care and compassion to more than 1,000 client company locations including those dealing with crisis and the daily issues of the workplace.

Marketplace Chaplains perform a wide variety of confidential, voluntary, non-denominational services from crisis response to hospital visitation to jail visitation to dealing with the hurts or hopes of the daily workplace.

When the floodwater starting rising in Columbia, South Carolina, Marketplace Chaplain Roger Acton immediately started calling Marketplace Client Company to see if they were affected by the rising waters.

“I talked to the Sales Manager at FSI-Columbia and he said they were fine, but they value the contribution of the chaplains to their company. I called our other local clients letting them know we are ready to help in any way,” Acton said. “Right we are in the mud out phases and assessing the damage left over and the aftermath of the floods.”

Every day when Bennett enters the Pilgrim’s plant in Sumter, he saw the message from the HR department displayed on the TVs located around the plant and offers hope and health to those he sees every day.”

“The flood of water we saw in South Carolina is an example of the flood of problems our trained and caring Marketplace Chaplains are helping combat every day,” Marketplace CEO and Executive President Doug Fagerstrom said.

For more information on this unique employee benefit which has been featured with Marketplace Chaplains on CNN, NBC Nightly News, and in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, visit https://mchapusa.com.

About Marketplace Chaplains

To arrange an interview with a Marketplace Chaplain contact Art Stricklin, Vice President Public Relations, at artstricklin@mchapusa.com or call 1-800-775-7657.