Recognized as one of the Barrington’s Best for employment opportunities, Turbocam is one of the largest employers in our area.  With two campuses in Barrington alone, and over 10 locations across the world, it’s easy to recognize how in a small town, a company like Turbocam can make a big impact.

But the impact of the founders – Marian and Suzie Noronha, goes way beyond starting a business that employs over 1000 people.  They started their journey over 35 years ago when they moved from the Upper Valley to the Durham area to help grow a church at UNH.  From its inception as a small church with a group of founders, that church has evolved and grown over the years – now housed in a former car dealership, New Frontiers Church has a lasting impact on the Seacoast community.

As a couple, both view business as a mission ground.  Businesses can move in places that a regular person could not go, or even a church cannot reach. They impact the lives of people – the employees, the customers, and suppliers.  The Noronhas focus on blessing the communities where they live, and through their work.

The charitable contributions of this family and their business, have a long-lasting and far-reaching impact.  Internationally, in 1999 they began by purchasing people in Nepal out of slavery.  Not only did they purchase these families out of slavery, but they also paid off their debt, and bought them land to settle on.  They helped provide the infrastructure necessary for living a healthy, independent life.  Since then the investment in the community has branched out into providing wells, building schools, teacher training, and infrastructure development.

Locally, Turbocam tends to invest in already developed charitable giving, investing in pioneers, rather than pioneering the work themselves.  They pour into their employees’ charities of choice, providing matching donations from the cafeteria purchases.  Of ten charities selected, most are recurring, with one new charity a month.  Originally, the donations were placed in buckets, but it got to be quite a handful managing all of them. The new system is quite sophisticated, employees select their food and/or drinks from the refrigerators, and when they pay, scan their items, as well as the charity they choose.  A matching donation is provided to the selected charity and everything is tallied electronically.

Each employee has an opportunity to volunteer (often done as teams) for a day a year, to their charity of choice.  Work has been done at Lydia’s House of Hope, gutting and renovating two of the rooms and fully furnishing them, and currently, they are working on the attic space to make that habitable. They’ve partnered with the local chapter of End 68 Hours of Hunger and SOS recovery.  Just by perusing their Facebook page  you can see the culture of giving.

It takes many drops of water to fill a bucket. While one big thing done by 1 or 2 people (like Bill Gates) can make a difference, a series of small, incremental changes can cause a flood of kindness as well.  Turbocam is a place like that – with a culture that will change the world.