Volunteering & Community

The team from Xylem Watermark in Morton Grove, IL has been hard at work in their local community. Twenty-five Watermark volunteers recently helped clean up a section of Lincoln Creek, which carries water away from Downtown Milwaukee. While doing so, they helped monitor water quality and shared their data as part of the EarthEcho Water challenge. In addition to 30 garbage bags of trash, the team also removed an automobile bumper and two shopping carts, highlighting the importance of keeping our waterways clean.

Comcast Cares Day is the nation’s largest single-day corporate volunteer effort and a powerful representation of Comcast NBCUniversal’s year-round commitment to community service. I have the privilege of working with a team to lead this effort, and this year for the first time, one of our focuses was working with the Arbor Day Foundation to restore communities devastated by natural disasters.

Both public and private companies should serve a social purpose. But can they, should they, be expected to do this on their own? Social impact does not exist in a vacuum. If we’re to overcome ongoing socio-economic and political crises, it’s going to take a unified approach. A brighter future for humanity is going to require collaboration – between individuals, and between sectors.

Fourteen-year-old Abby Blunt hardly knows what the world was like before smartphones — but technology is helping her with that. During a recent trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Abby roamed the “Tower of Faces” section of the main exhibition, smartphone in hand, eyes glued to her screen.

This week, outdoor lifestyle brand Timberland shared its newest approach to employee volunteerism – which can be completed in just around a half hour.

As children, we are taught the value of helping others, doing what is right and looking out for one another. In business, these values can be demonstrated through corporate social responsibility (CSR), a term used to describe how a company shares its business’ culture, values and ways of giving back.

Long gone are the days of disengaged consumers, whose allegiance is garnered merely through coupons and loyalty programs. Today’s customers are increasingly sophisticated and selective. They like to keep their finger on the pulse of the companies with which they have chosen, or are thinking of choosing, to do business. Does the business align with their values? Is it engaged with the community, and what is it doing for the greater good?

Officials hope to brighten up Michigan neighborhoods with the Light Up the City initiative. Volunteers will go door to door this summer, asking to install lightbulbs on porches. Consumers Energy donated 1,500 lightbulbs to the program.

A significant milestone in development of Borden Gold, Canada’s first all-electric underground mine took place on June 6, 2018, with the signing of an Impacts and Benefits Agreement (IBA) between Goldcorp and three First Nation communities including Brunswick House First Nation (BHFN), Chapleau Cree First Nation (CCFN), and Chapleau Ojibwe First Nation (COFN).

In the days leading up to Goldenvoice’s Arroyo Seco Weekend in Pasadena, Calif., AEG welcomed more than 30 students from Pasadena Unified School District and Pasadena area high schools for the second annual Arroyo Seco Weekend Youth Program at the Rose Bowl.