Our Members' Commitment to Charities over Christmas

Our Members' Commitment to Charities over Christmas 4th January 2010: Companies maintain spirit of charity - Irish Examiner Each Christmas, member companies of Business in the Community Ireland demonstrate huge support for charities and local community groups and this is a reflection of their ongoing engagement with groups throughout the year. Below are just some examples of how Ireland's top companies are supporting local groups during Christmas. PricewaterhouseCoopers By joining forces with Youth and Community Development organisation Localise, PricewaterhouseCoopers launched the 'Care in the Community' project in the North Wall area. This project is in its second year. The project involved PwC people working with the children from local school, St Laurence O'Toole's CBS and GNS, Seville Place, Dublin 1. Together, they devised and executed a "Gift Appeal" to provide a Christmas box of longed-for gifts to each of the 21 residents of local Simon Community supported housing at Sean McDermott Street, Dublin. PWC are once again running its annual Santa Letter programme. This programme enables the children of four disadvantaged Dublin schools to receive a gift from a PwC Santa! Finally, PwC are hosted its annual children's Christmas party on 12 December. Children of all the employees are invited to partake in the festivities. A significant part of the day is that all children attending are invited to bring a child's present to the event to donate to St Vincent De Paul. Abbott Laboratories Ireland Abbott Laboratories Ireland run a number of initiatives across its sites: Its Dublin office is holding its All Employee day in Barretstown this December and more than 100 staff will be volunteering to help the charity. Its annual Shoebox Appeal for the Samaritans has resulted in over 480 boxes being collected for charity. Abbott staff have raised over €2500 for Barnardos through its Christmas card campaign and its Cootehill site ran a cake sale on the 16th December in aid of the Central Remedial Clinic. In addition, Abbott's Clonmel site is holding a Christmas card campaign in aid of the Sligo Social Service, St. Vincent de Paul and North West Simon Community. Finally, staff at its site in Sligo are buying presents for residents of a local nursing home, running a raffle for flood relief victims and raising monies for the Irish Kidney Association and Focus Ireland. AIB Group For the past 26 years, a group of AIB staff have held an annual Christmas Hamper Appeal. A fund-raising drive is held over two days in Bankcentre along with a toy appeal. The committee then buy food hampers and toys and then deliver the packages to hundreds of families living in hardship and deprivation in the Dublin area, the names of which are provided by the St. Vincent de Paul. The amount raised this year was over €21,000, which will help over 200 families. On the 4th December AIB staff held the annual Charity Christmas Market at Bankcentre. The event was a huge success raising more than €13,000, with 24 different charities benefiting. Some of the charities included, Irish Heart Foundation, Temple Street Children's Hospital, Deborah Ireland, Barretstown and National Rehabilitation Hospital. Glanbia plc Glanbia plc continues to show huge support for Barretstown, the Groups designated Irish charity. Its 2000 employees have recently reached a momentous milestone by raising over €60,000 in fundraising for the charity The money raised by the Glanbia employees will sponsor a cottage and the Arts & Crafts Programme. The Glanbia - Barretstown partnership commenced in 2008 and has three dimensions, involving a corporate contribution as well as active employee engagement and the high profile Avonmore brand programme. Intel Ireland Intel Ireland run a number of events around Christmas and here's just a sample: Annual Meals on Wheels event was held and at this event Intel staff make and deliver 30 meals to clients in the Leixlip area and later in the day the site management team serve dinner to the 80 volunteer drivers and chefs of the meals on wheels giving them a much needed day off. Intel has a site charity day on the 17th of December which assists the following four charities, CASA (Caring and Sharing Association), DSPCA (Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), Carers Association and Autism Ireland. Intel Ireland staff have also packed 1200 care packs for Simon Community clients and have donated toys and sweets to. The company are also actively helping out Ireland's flood victims by organising a fun run for St. Vincent de Paul and Irish Red Cross and matching employee donations to The Community Foundation for Ireland's Flood Recovery Fund. Microsoft Ireland Microsoft Ireland are running a number of fundraising events throughout the organisation in the run up to Christmas including Xbox competitions, raffles, mulled wine mornings, football competitions and much more. They expect to raise between €10,000-€15,000 and monies will go to a number of charities including Laura Lynn Foundation, a local childrens' hospice charity, St. Vincent's De Paul and Irish Cancer society. In addition, they will be running their annual ‘Giving Tree' for Barnardos and hope to beat the 300 gifts that they gathered last year. Pfizer Ireland Pfizer Ireland are donating monies to St. Vincent de Paul's in lieu of sending out Christmas cards and its Pfizer Healthcare site is also organising a collection for the Simon Community. Sodexo Ireland Sodexo Ireland support teams in the Dublin and Cork offices have a St. Vincent de Paul Christmas Giving Tree where everybody in the office buys a gift for a child - which are then given to needy families in the local community. State Street International (Ireland) State Street International (Ireland) employees donated over 300 new toys, and a further 100 food vouchers to Barnardos. Here is a quote the company received from one of the Barnardos centres, following a donation of toys and vouchers: “I would like you to pass onto all who donated, and all Santa's little helpers who organised the collection what this means to both Barnardos and most importantly the families that we work with. One young mother told me tonight that because both her children would be getting the toys they had asked for, she would put €50 on her Gas card and heat her house for the whole of Christmas week. This is a rare treat for this family, who have to watch every cent. The thought which was put into gifts, in terms of quality and age appropriateness, and the obvious expense to your colleagues far exceeded our expectations in what is a difficult time for everyone given the current economic climate.” Ulster Bank Group Ulster Bank Group's three charity partners in 2009 are Enable Ireland, Simon Community and Barnardos and here is how they are supporting all three during Christmas: Enable Ireland were invited into head office building on 24th November to sell charity Christmas cards. This sale went so well that they are returned on 11th December. Enable also received a donation from Ulster bank's staff charity fund as did the Simon Community. Barnardos sold charity cards in head office on 26th November. Other charities were also supported by the staff charity fund including a €20,000 donation to St. Vincent de Paul to help flood victims. Finally, Giving Trees were placed in head office buildings to collect toys for children and the bank also completed a mobile phone drive by collecting used mobiles in George's Quay, Dublin Mortgage Centre and College Green offices with each mobile collected resulting in a donation to St. Vincent De Paul. Vodafone Ireland Vodafone Ireland will once again be supporting St. Vincent de Paul with a Gift Tree. Employees at Vodafone Ireland will be bringing unwrapped gifts to the office on Friday 18th December where they will then be placed under the Christmas tree. On Thursday 3rd December Vodafone Ireland employees in the Consumer Department held a Jersey Day in aid of Chernobyl Childrens Project Ireland (CCPI). On the day, employees wore their own favourite club jersey and made a donation to the charity. Alternatively, employees could purchase a CCPI t-shirt in aid of the charity. On Friday 4th December, Adi Roche of CCPI visited Vodafone in Leopardstown and paid tribute to the efforts being made by the staff. Wyeth This year marked the sixth year of Wyeth Medica Ireland's partnership with the Heart To Hand Christmas Shoebox Appeal. This annual project enables employeess and their families to fill ordinary shoeboxes with small toys, school supplies, sweets and other gifts for needy children. Since 2004 Wyeth Medica Ireland employee's have brought the joy of Christmas to more than 4,000 boys and girls in both Romania and Albania.Yet again this year, Wyeth Medica Ireland had a fantastic response and sent 855 shoeboxes to children in hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters and impoverished neighbourhoods in Albania. Over 80 volunteers got involved in the wrapping, sorting and labeling of the shoeboxes.