Global Holiday Spirits Weeks is specially set aside for holiday volunteer activities during the month of December. This past year, employees from all over the world engaged in meaningful projects to celebrate the holiday season with their communities.

AMERICAS - WEST

San Francisco

1,250 volunteer hours, 33 total holiday volunteer events, 10 designated team activities!

• 173 gingerbread houses and holiday crafts done with kids from Jean Parker Elementary, in addition to helping 30 kids learn to read through the weekly "I'm All Ears" program
• 10,000 toys sorted and given away to children at Glide Memorial
• 800 trays of meals served at Glide Memorial on one day
• 75 seniors at Glide Memorial treated to a special holiday lunch cooked and served by Salesforce volunteers
• 175 kids from Glide Memorial were taken on a shopping spree at Old Navy - each allowed to spend $200!
• 35 kids from the Tenderloin Corps Community Center after-school program were strutting their stuff ice skating with Salesforce.com IT department
• 215 gifts collected and wrapped for kids at Heritage Homes and Britton Court, two low-income housing projects
• Four large families were adopted, funds for a holiday meal provided to five families
• 4,000 pounds of food was sorted at the San Francisco Food Bank
• 2,500 pounds of food and toys were sorted at the Salvation Army
• 1,993 low-income and homeless individuals were helped in part through the efforts of 65 Salesforce volunteers at Project Homeless Connect
• Bus loads of kids learned through to make toys from science with the help of Salesforce volunteers at the Exploratorium's Physics of Toys
• 23 pints of blood donated-enough to save 59 lives
• 50 families were cooked and served meals at Raphael House and Hamilton Family Center, two family homeless shelters, on three occasions by Salesforce volunteers
• 88 new employees were introduced to the 1/1/1 model through meaningful and impactful New Hire volunteer events at the Tenderloin Corps Community Center, Connecting Point, Salvation Army, and Lighthouse Corps in December

Santa Monica

• 495 meals were cooked and served to homeless and low income individuals at Helping Other People Eat (HOPE), volunteers visited the facility three times during December
• Volunteers helped brighten the holidays for 400 children at the Police Activities League's annual holiday party, volunteers helped at craft stations, made gingerbread houses with little ones, handed out snacks and gifts to children from low-income neighborhoods

 

AMERICAS - EAST

Atlanta

• Three foster children "adopted" and given gifts on their Christmas wish lists
• $1,000 donated to the Hart County Foster Parents Association to help them by gifts for some of the remaining 100+ children

New York

• Served meals to ~100 people at Grand Central Neighborhood Services
• Donated coats to some of New York's homeless population through the New York Cares Winter Coat Drive

Tampa

• Helped the Holiday Center at Metropolitan Ministries receive, sort and distribute food, turkeys and new toys and gifts to an estimated 14,000 families in need

Toronto

• 14 employees helped over 50 children decorate Christmas cookies at the Kiwanis Boys & Girls Club's holiday party. One employee shared that "The children's faces were the best part of the night; especially seeing one little boy who got away with eight beautifully decorated cookies!"
• The entire office got together to raise $3,000 for the CHUMCity Christmas Wish. The money will go to assisting Toronto children and families in need during this holiday season. Rebecca Jacot and Greg Apple delivered a huge, fake check to the organization and salesforce.com got a mention on the radio!!!
• The office also donated a huge amount of food to Second Harvest.

 

APAC

Japan

Overall 400 hours of volunteering in December! 100% participation rate in the Global Holiday Spirit Weeks: every employee participated in one or more activities from the Japan office!

• 62 presents bought and delivered by employees to the children living at the Ayumi Gakuen Children Home, in Saitama prefecture (Nishida-san as Japanese Santa).
• 200 picture books translated from Japanese to Laotian and sent to benefit literacy effort in South East Asia, in partnership with Shanti Volunteer Association
• 10 employees supported the Christmas fundraising effort of Kids Earth Fund
• 7 employees discovered the work of our grantee Kamonohashi Project, and sent messages to the Cambodian youth that learn computer skills in a Salesforce.com-funded IT lab
• 5 employees volunteered to beautify yard at local hospital

Singapore

• 17 employees helped shop for, wrap and deliver gifts to about 50 kids hospitalized at the Assisi Hospice - The children and teenagers, many of whom are fighting cancer, range in age from 3 - 19 (Doug Farber played Santa)
• 30+ employees participated in the second Singapore BizAcademy as mentors, presenters, shoppers, and networkers
• 8 students were blown away by BizAcademy program, and 6 BizAcademy graduates mentored the new BizAcademy class in the Salesforce office

Australia

• Salesforce employee Matt Loop grew an outstanding mustache in order to raise funds for men's health causes, and collected 4000$, beating his initial fundraising goal by 80%!

EMEA

London

• 20 kids from Kids Company taken Quad Biking
• UK office Team went to beautify the grounds of Naomi House, a children's hospice
• Over £1000 worth of Giving Tree gifts given in the UK to Naomi House
• Kids Co invited to London networking event to launch £5000 customer referral scheme to benefit Kids Co

Munich

• Munich office team spent time at the Waisenhaus, mentoring young people

Dublin

• 30 volunteers accompanied 120 children ice-skating from Citywise
• Perilmondo, an Italian NGO coordinating the post-Tsunami projects, visited the Salesforce offices and gave a day-half day seminar about the projects and the general situation in Sri Lanka
• The Foosball Cup raised over €500 for Citywise, http://www.footballislife.net/index.html

Paris

• A two week volunteering effort was undertaken for The Make-a-Wish Foundation, the charity specially selected for the office

Switzerland

• A relationship was established with IMBEWU, a Swiss-south African youth organization that sees the involvement of the son of Steve Biko and the Roger Federer Foundation