Eleven members of the EMEA web marketing team spent the day at Coláiste Bríde -a secondary school in a disadvantaged area of West Dublin. It's a modern school built in 2006 and caters for 850 girls from the local area. They spent the day working hard maintaining the school's organic vegetable garden.
Salesforce.com volunteers joined together with PG&E's Women's Network to build homes that will help low income families reach their dream of home ownership.
Sue Amar, Sustainability Manager and Michael Orr, Senior Program Manager IT Applications, championed a Community Action Team Grant for the GRID Alternatives Bay Area Solarthon where salesforce.com volunteers installed solar electric systems on low-income housing in West Oakland. In total over 200 community volunteers, corporate work teams and job trainees came out to install 9 solar electric systems in one day! A total of 18 kilowatts were installed, which will generate over $180,000 in clean energy for these families over the next 20-30 years, saving them over 75% on their electricity bills. Eager to take her job hands on, Jennie Pang, salesforce.com Sustainability Intern, volunteered with the team on the prep day and event day. She shares her story:
Josie Vertz contacted the Foundation to see how her team could make an impact in the local community. When presented with the opportunity to work with Rebuilding Togehter and MAC Children and Family Services to refurbish 3 apartments for foster youth, she jumped into action and made it happen (even with quarter end fast approaching)! She shares her team’s experience.
AlpAtlas is an NGO set up in Lausanne in 2004. It aims to fight against poverty by enabling the poor to develop their strengths and potential to take charge of their destiny. Thank you Alexandre Stauffer, David Luthi, Yonathan Rajczyk, Sebastien Berra, Federico Eckert, Bernard Bahler and Hakim Yakia Cherif.
Dialogue in the Dark – An exhibition and workshop to discover the unseen
A group of 16 volunteers visited Dialogue in the Dark exhibition- a walk through a completely dark room, led by blind guides in groups of 8 to experience a day in the life of a blind person.
After a 1 hour journey into the darkness – crossing bridges, roads, taking a boat ride, going to market area – everyone in the group felt extremely gifted and highly grateful of their ability to see. They also felt more empathetic towards the blind and learned the most valuable lesson that's it’s not our ability but the environment that's disables us, just like the sighted people in a dark room felt completely disabled.
One of those events that bring a lump to your throat. Following on from a ground breaking Christmas activity with Simpson's Hospital - a residential hospice for elderly men, a team of SR's based in Dublin took a group out to the zoo.
This summer salesforce.com UK had a wonderful opportunity to get involved with The Elephant Family - a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness and funds for the plight of the Asian Elephant. We were the corporate sponsors of the event and supplied scores of volunteers to coat the 260 artist/designer painted elephants with anti-grafitti resin as well as being involved with installation of these elephants throughout London.
