From Dublin to Dubai, California to Cape Town, Symantec employees around the globe came together to celebrate the holiday season by giving back to their local communities. Food drives, toy collections, fundraising events and volunteer activities brought employees together to celebrate while making a difference for those less privileged.
Throughout the year, Symantec's community relations committees work closely with the Corporate Responsibility team to identify local nonprofits working in Symantec's philanthropic focus areas: science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education; online safety; diversity; and environmental responsibility. For Symantec, being a responsible, contributing part of society means applying its assets --money, talent and time -- to those issues that are material to Symantec's business.
But during the holiday season, employees' concerns turn to the people in their local community -- those who may be hungry or who are unable to provide gifts for their children. And they come together to make the season a little brighter for their neighbors.
Australia/New Zealand
In its 10th year, the Pacific Region's SymanteClaus event focuses on teenagers -- a group that is often overlooked in toy drives. Employees in Australia and New Zealand are encouraged to purchase gifts for teens, which are donated along with a cash donation to the Salvation Army for distribution. The Symantec Marketplace -- the company's local corporate merchandising partner -- hosts a special SymanteClaus section each year with teen-appropriate gifts to make giving as easy as possible.
Dublin, Ireland
In Dublin, employees participated in the site's third annual food drive benefiting St. Vincent De Paul. They hoped to be as successful as they were last year, when they distributed 115 food hampers and helped 185 families with food, fuel and clothing.
The site also set up a Giving Tree to benefit the children at Temple Street Hospital.
And Dublin didn't neglect the quarter's focus on online safety volunteerism, sending employees to participate in the Junior Achievement Kids Technology Workshop, where they delivered a beginners network concept class to primary school children. Brian Bambrick, John Handley, Sean McAdam and Paul Mangan all taught classes and engaged with the children to develop their interest in the idea of a network, the Internet and how everyone is connected in the digital age.
Mountain View, California, USA
Mountain View also focused in on online safety volunteerism during October's National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Nine employee volunteers visited the Alviso Boys and Girls Club to teach cybersecurity concepts to more than 100 students in three classrooms.
The headquarters site also continued its partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank. In years past, the site hosted a food drive while simultaneously collecting funds for donation. However, for every dollar donated, Second Harvest can purchase two meals -- far more than what donations of individual food items can deliver. So focusing on cash donations, the site set a goal of raising $100,000 -- and surpassed it, raising a total of $101,838.
Eric Hummel's team in HR adopted two families -- a family of four and a single mother with two small children -- through the Salvation Army of San Jose's Adopt-a-Family Project. One of the families had four children all asking for bikes, with the parents asking for a coat and a down comforter. The team provided each of the families with everything they asked for and all of the children were able to get clothing items. In addition, they provided $225 worth of gift cards for food purchases.
Green Park, UK
In Symantec's Green Park office, they also focused on the quarter's theme of online safety volunteerism, sending employees to TeenTech to host several sessions on the vulnerabilities of the Internet and password security. This took the form of a "Cyber Spies" challenge, which introduced the teens to "packet capture" -- a technique a hacker might use to listen in when two friends are using a non-secure instant messaging service. The teens' challenge was to use the information from this non-secure conversation to guess a password to a Facebook account and to treasure hunt questions on finding personal information through social media channels.
In the spirit of the holidays, Green Park employees also collected more than 100 gifts to benefit the children at Naomi House and Rainbow Trust Children's Charity. Naomi House is a children's hospice, providing support to children and young people with terminal illnesses. Rainbow Trust Children's Charity provides emotional and practical support for families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness.
Singapore
Singapore's food collection -- initiated by the HR team there -- benefited the Boys' Brigade Share-A-Gift food donation drive, a national community service project focused on the collection and distribution of food donations to the less fortunate in Singapore. Employees contributed many high-need items, including 44 bottles of cooking oil, 289 tins of canned food, 105 packs of instant noodles and more.
Cape Town, South Africa
In Cape Town, employees bought presents for the children served by the Masibambane Creche, which provides adoption services, child development centers, foster care, and infant care centers and nurseries. After Santa (Cape Town employee Wade Corin) distributed the gifts, the team painted the outside of the crech to add a little color to the children's lives.
Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
The Waltham office collected more than 70 toys for Toys for Tots again this year, challenging each department to rally their teams to bring in toys.
Heathrow, Florida, USA
The Heathrow site put their efforts into supporting the Orange/Seminole Foster Children's Association in Central Florida. As part of an effort to provide foster children with holiday presents, the Heathrow site provided 355 children with gifts. Employees bought gifts based on children's gift request tags as well as cash donations that the site's "volunteer elves" used to shop for the children's presents. In addition, the engineering team held a benefit breakfast to aid the effort, raising more than $1,300 when combined with corporate matching to help the needs of the organization.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dubai's holiday collection resulted in the delivery of 73 gifts of toys, as well as 4,000 AED in vouchers for groceries and household products, to Senses Residential Care Home, a residential center providing safety, comfort and care to special needs children whose families are unable to support them.
Roseville, Minnesota, USA
The Roseville community relations committee held a food drive in December, benefiting Keystone Community Services, a community-based human services organization in St. Paul, Minnesota. It offers a variety of human service programs for all ages at multiple sites, including three food pantries, emergency food assistance and a comprehensive seniors program that provides Meals on Wheels and other services.
When committee leader PJ Nadeau delivered the sites' 200 pounds of collected food, she was told, "We just knew we could count on Symantec once again!"
Chicago, Illinois, USA
In Chicago, employees spent an afternoon supporting Feed My Starving Children, which relies on volunteers to pre-package meals that are formulated for malnourished children, and then delivers these meals to children in more than 70 countries around the globe. Symantec's Chicago-based team packed an amazing 22,000 meals, which will feed 60 children for the entire year.
Germany
Symantec's Germany offices in Munich, Ratingen, Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg collected funds at their respective Christmas team dinners to benefit organizations fighting Ebola.
Lindon, Utah, USA
Finally, in Lindon, employees participated in both the United Way of Utah County's Sub-for-Santa program, helping 10 families and providing gifts for a total of 28 children, and a separate gift drive for Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.
Thank you for your efforts and Happy New Year from the Corporate Responsibility team.