Longer Events Increase our Opportunities to Give Back

Through Sands Cares, our charitable giving and community engagement program, we strive to provide numerous community volunteer opportunities for our Team Members throughout the year. Often, these are singular, one-day events, like planting a community garden or helping to build a home with Habitat for Humanity. We also sponsor events that span days—and sometimes months—filled with multiple, thematically connected opportunities.

“Longer campaigns allow people multiple ways to get involved,” says Stephanie Stanton, Director of Sands Cares at The Venetian Resort. “From donating a toy or coat, to feeding the homeless to packing meals, it allows Team Members to give in the way that is most meaningful to them. And it allows for the maximum number of people to get involved when events are spread out over multiple weeks and shifts.”

Sands Cares Season of Giving is one way we build long-term community engagement. Beginning in November of every year and lasting through the Christmas holiday season, Season of Giving involves our Las Vegas Team Member volunteers in events such as sorting and packaging food at a local food bank and Project Homeless Connect, produced annually by the Nevada Homeless Alliance, which bring Team Members together to help with management and registration for Southern Nevada’s largest gathering of social services for the homeless. “Project Homeless Connect gives our Team Members the privilege of volunteering side by side with other hospitality industry members through a concerted initiative with the Nevada Resort Association CSR Coalition,” Stanton says.

Earlier on the calendar, Marina Bay Sands hosts the annual Sands for Singapore Charity Festival. This year’s festival took place August 2 – 4, and involved 2,300 Team Member volunteers contributing over 5,000 collective hours of service to the community. The festival includes events like the Play it Forward challenge, which seeks to raise money for local charities. “The Play it Forward charity challenge is one of the highlights of the Sands for Singapore Charity Festival,” says Joyce Siew, Associate Director of Communications at Marina Bay Sands. “It inspires people of all ages to compete in a series of challenges around the property to secure funds for a local charity of choice.” Two hundred and fifty Team Members and their family members joined this event, raising over $150,000. The Festival overall raised over $3.8 million in 2019, and has raised more than $27 million since 2013.

“By committing to multiple initiatives,” Stanton explains, “we have a greater impact on our communities in times of need.”