Four area residents have been overwhelmed with gratitude toward a Chicago-based company that befriended them.

"You can't imagine what this means to me," said Farmers Branch resident Mike McCullough, whose fence and storage shed a group of volunteers from Convergint Technologies recently repaired. "I thought helping people went away in the '60s and '70s. This is pretty amazing."

One day each year, the maker of electronic security, fire alarm and life safety and building automation systems closes all of its 21 U.S. and Canadian offices and ventures into the community to assist where needed.

On June 20, Convergint's seventh annual Social Responsibility Day, 70 colleagues in the Dallas office made minor home repairs, painted and cleaned for homeowners selected through Senior Adult Services, which serves Carrollton, Farmers Branch, Coppell and Addison.

The agency's goal is "to help seniors in the area live as independently as possible," said Gayle Collins, program and volunteer services director.

And how efficient were they?

"The workers accomplished in one day what would normally take six weeks with volunteers," said Greg Gerendas, the nonprofit's executive director.

The efforts impressed Jim Lewis, who is paralyzed from the waist down after a work accident. The Convergint workers fixed the fence at his Farmers Branch home.

"Thank you isn't enough," Mr. Lewis said. "What they have done is beyond words."

Convergint president Greg Lernihan, who co-founded the company in 2001, estimates the business lost half a million dollars in revenue by closing for the day – a preferable outcome to "losing our heart and soul" in the pursuit of profits.

"We didn't want to be a company that was taking from the community," he said. "We have been blessed, and we want to give back to the community."

Peggy Burns of Carrollton, another beneficiary of the work day, appreciates that.

"I didn't expect anything like this," she said. "They took it upon themselves to do everything I needed. I am blown away by the whole thing."

Angela Shoultz is a Dallas freelance writer.