Volunteering

On January 26, Team Members around the world were congratulated after learning they had been selected as Sands Cares Heroes of the Year, as well as finalists for The Sheldon G. and Dr. Miriam Adelson Citizenship Award presented by Sands Cares. Sands Cares is the corporate giving program of Las Vegas Sands, where we make our communities better places to live through philanthropic giving, volunteerism and other in-kind support to local organizations.

At 60, Rieta Yap performs her duties as a Security Service Administrator at Marina Bay Sands (MBS) with a spring in her step. She is one of the most active contributors on the OneMBS Social Network, MBS’s internal Facebook group, and she eagerly looks forward to Sands for Singapore posts about volunteer opportunities.

When Pretika R K left the Republic of Singapore Navy after nearly a decade of service to her country, she rededicated her life to another form of service – making a difference in the lives of others. Pretika has been an active member of the community since she was young and has volunteered at various organizations on her own time.

Gabriel Abebrese and Gunnar Schoenig both volunteer with the charity App Camps, which gives young people, including refugees, the skills to start a career in tech. The two Barclaycard employees tell us about the satisfaction they get from helping the young people grow in skills and confidence – and how some are already earning money from their ideas.

During the recent holiday season and extreme winter weather, the CITGO Lemont Refinery generously supported employee-led initiatives to provide food, clothing and toys to local families. Refinery employees lead an annual food drive prior to Thanksgiving to help local organizations fill their shelves before the holidays. This year, employees donated approximately 40 grocery bags and 30 large bins of food and delivered them to six area food pantries including, Bethany Food Pantry, Day Break Shelter, DuPage Township Pantry, Fairmont Food Pantry and Romeoville Community Pantry.

During Sustainable September, we spoke with Alicia Procello, VP, Corporate Social Responsibility and President, Avery Dennison Foundation and Janet Sandoval, Senior Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Avery Dennison Foundation. They spoke about their work and how serving as a force for good contributes to a more sustainable future.

Employees from the Arrow Electronics office in Neu-Isenburg, Germany recently volunteered their time at local food bank Speisekammer. For several weeks, Arrow employees helped food bank staff transport, unpack and dispense food to the low-income families who utilize Speisekammer’s services.

Citi Community Development announced today a $2.6 million investment to support free tax preparation services for eligible workers in major cities and regions across the country. Launched on National Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day, the investment will support municipal efforts to expand awareness, access and capacity of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites during the 2018 tax season. Citi Community Development’s investment aims to help local organizations complete over 230,000 tax returns, resulting in approximately $191 million in tax refunds during the 2018 tax season. Citi also announced that volunteers from the bank will serve as tax preparers in VITA sites across the New York City region.

RecycleMania, the premier collegiate recycling competition managed by national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful, is back for its 18th year as college and university campuses across the country compete to see who will claim the championship title in the fight to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost the most on campus. Registration for the 2018 RecycleMania competition will close on Friday, Feb. 2. RecycleMania will begin on Sunday, Feb. 4, with the campus competition running for eight weeks, concluding on Saturday, March 31.

For Josh Kaplan, giving back to the community is part of who he is. Driven by the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world,” he believes each of us has the power to create change and participate meaningfully in the world around us.