TheTechnical Documentation team led the San Francisco AIDS Toiletry Drive at salesforce.com during the month of March and delivered excellent results for the community.  Sarah Marovich, Senior Technical Writer at salesforce.com shares her story:

After learning about the amazing services SF AIDS Foundation provides, I was determined to work with them and help out. So, I assembled a planning team and decided to run a toiletry drive at HQ. The team members were Sheri Bernard, Lauren Pederson,Michelle Chapman-Thurber, Gavin Austin, Elizabeth Rice and Michelle Jowitt.  The team decided to run the event for one month, plaster HQ with flyers and donation boxes, and secure donations through our website. Team members went to their families, friends, and local hotels to get donations as well! After the drive was over, we went to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and helped to assemble the toiletry kits. While we were there, we also helped to assemble safe drug smoking kits to help prevent the spread of HIV amongst drug users.

The project was a huge success! We ended up creating over 500 kits with the Salesforce.com donations alone. We also helped to assemble over 200 safe drug kits. Since the team put in so many hours, we qualified for a $1000 CAT grant that was used to purchase more toiletries AND 4 team members qualified for Dollars for Doers grants. The grants combined with donations (matched by Salesforce.com) raised over $2000 for the SF AIDS Foundation. I was amazed by the result and am so proud of my team and company. We worked really hard on this project and it was great to see such positive results.

Subject: Salesforce.com ROCKS! 

From: Emily Emily Mariko-Sanders, Volunteer Based Programs, San Francisco AIDS Foundation

Please communicate [to the team] the fact that keeping up the hygiene of our clients, thereby improving their general health, and keeping them safe with the other kits means that the team almost certainly HAS prevented HIV infections from happening. Thank you!