Tour company Trafalgar is giving its global workforce the day off in recognition of International Volunteer Day on December 5. Constituting a collective 24,000 paid volunteer hours, the workers’ efforts will consist of planting trees, cleaning beaches, charity fundraising and more.
Trafalgar offers its employees two paid days off each year to volunteer. Today, the company’s global teams, assisting in over 10 countries, will be helping in a variety of ways, including:
- In the United States, employees are sorting and packaging thousands of pounds of food for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, California, a service that provides over 21.6 million meals every year.
- In Canada, the Trafalgar team is wrapping presents for Holiday Helpers Canada, a group that provides gifts for low-income families.
- In Singapore, workers are cleaning the Blossom Seeds facility, a home for over 5,000 elderly residents.
- In New Zealand, employees are assisting Sustainable Coastlines in planting native trees and collecting litter at one of the region’s fragile beaches.
- In Geneva, team members are giving blood, supporting animal welfare, wrapping presents for the Red Cross and taking part in the local Escalade Run to raise money for London’s Battersea animal shelter.
- In the UK, workers are becoming CPR certified and canvassing for St. John’s Ambulance, a group that teaches and provides first aid and emergency medicine.
- In South Africa, employees are volunteering at The Bryanston Methodist Church Soup Kitchen, cleaning up beaches and volunteering at an animal shelter.
- In Australia, volunteers will help the Magic Moments Basket Brigade supply gifts and food to those and need, as well as supplying dog food and animal supplies to drought-affected farmers in rural New South Wales.
Trafalgar CEO Gavin Tollman is calling on other companies to help make a difference, as well. “Companies with legitimate corporate social responsibility must have an ethos that runs deep, from the very core of their business. It is about empowering your own people to make a difference, in whatever form that takes,” he said in a written release.
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