You can shake the January blues with this 2010 recap of the generosity, compassion, and fun-loving spirit of the global eBay Foundation GIVE Team. The 16 teams around the world turned in accomplishments for the year that were nothing short of remarkable. More than $600,000 was granted to nonprofit organizations on behalf of the GIVE Team, and employees provided additional support through volunteer and donation drive activities. The following citations represent just a selection of the total community support provided.
MUMBAI
Through Make-a-Wish Foundation of India, Mumbai employees played Santa’s helpers to donate over $2,000 toward toys, clothes, and bicycles for children with life-threatening illnesses.
CHINA
Following the magnitude-7.1 earthquake in Yushu, China in April, the China GIVE Team acted quickly to organize $10,000 in donations from across the company. The team also chose to support Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) again, and funded eight projects that give university students the opportunity to learn more about entrepreneurship by creating economic opportunity for their communities.
KOREA
The Korea GIVE Team was so excited about its holiday fundraising that it produced and distributed eBay-colored, happy face coin boxes to collect funds for UNICEF. All 1,000 employees at eBay Korea participated.
AUSTRALIA
Australia’s employees actively supported the Ronald McDonald House, which houses families with sick children in the hospital, and the Movember Foundation, which raises vital funds for and awareness of men’s health issues. Several eBay Australia employees volunteered each month by cooking dinner for families and in November, twelve employees grew mustaches to raise funds for Movember.
IRELAND
Dublin’s GIVE Team donated over $50,000 to selected organizations, supporting several hospice and medical care centers, as well as medical research, drug awareness and homelessness initiatives. They also had 35 employees participate in and raise funds for Movember.
U.K.
In the spirit of the holidays, dozens of U.K. employees volunteered for the second year at three Age Concern Christmas Lunches where they prepared and served food, and danced with senior citizens. The GIVE team also supported the Homeless Mobile Christmas Service, an organization that provides food and clothing and operates homeless shelters that would otherwise be closed during the holidays.
BERN
In Switzerland, GIVE Team grants benefited a local school for disabled children and an orphanage in Kenya. Donations were gathered for victims of disasters in Haiti and Pakistan, and nearly 50 volunteers cleared invasive plants in a World Wildlife Fund area to protect rare species.
GERMANY
Thanks to matching donations and creative fundraising efforts such as clearing eBay Germany PR team’s stockroom to sell old eBay memorabilia, Save the Children in Pakistan received $1,300 and a Berlin soup kitchen received $1,700. Dreilinden’s GIVE Team also got creative with its grants, which supported (among other things): opera gala tickets for 300 low-income children, nine theater performances by homeless youth, sailing lessons for six young people suffering from mental disorders, and a house for medical staff in Burkina Faso.
SALT LAKE CITY
Talk about numbers. The Salt Lake City GIVE Team’s annual food drive pulled together 8,000 food items, 5,000+ pounds of food, and over $8,000 for the Utah Food Bank (a six-fold increase from 2009). This amount of money will provide 41,838 pounds of food. To further spread Christmas cheer, the team adopted 175 “angels” through the Salvation Army to ensure they had gifts to open on Christmas day. To top it all off, SLC employees raised $4,500 for a local children’s hospital through their annual “Festival of Trees,” an auction of gorgeously decorated trees, wreaths, and crafts.
OMAHA
Employees in Omaha have been building homes for low-income families for five years, and this year 25 employees volunteered at a build in October. Throughout 2010, Omaha employees impressively logged over 2,000 hours of volunteer service. In addition to thousands of dollars in grants to 35 organizations, the team also made a commitment this year to supplying office chairs to local organizations, provided computers to an AARP center, and brought 43 low-income high school students and three teachers to visit the PayPal campus. The team’s largest grant supported Heartland Family Services, which was also supported through the Community Events Team’s Giving Tree drive during the holidays.
HARTFORD
Connecticut’s GIVE Team grants supported special radio reading services for the blind and print handicapped, as well as a mentoring program, which five employees will volunteer with in 2011. Team members finished off 2010 with what they considered the highlight of their year of service: toy shopping! StubHub provided the main meal for the annual Toys for Tots benefit luncheon, and generous employees chipped in with additional potluck items, two large boxes of toys, and $650 in cash donations to buy more toys.
BALTIMORE
Three hundred employees at PayPal East collected nearly 500 pounds of food more than they did during last year’s food drive, bringing in 1,406 pounds in 2010. This translates to nearly 1,100 meals—over three meals per employee who participated.
PHOENIX
In its inaugural year, the Phoenix GIVE Team got off to an active start. Employees donated over 140 cases of water (no small thing in the desert) and backpacks packed with school supplies, cleaned housing units for Ronald McDonald House, volunteered around Halloween at a haunted house to raise money for the Phoenix Zoo, and gave 140 toys to kids during the holidays. The team’s $2,500 grants supplied weekend food bags for families in need, provided lunch and uniforms at a local school, paid for summer camp for underprivileged children, and provided care for injured Marines and their families.
AUSTIN
Throughout 2010, the GIVE Team in Austin held drives for diapers and baby clothes, hygiene supplies, and toys for kids around the holidays. It gave thousands of dollars in grants to support homelessness, child abuse, and Alzheimer’s, and sent twenty PayPal volunteers to an environmental clean-up event in Austin.
CHENNAI
The Chennai GIVE Team stayed very busy in the community this year, organizing an event every month. Through the Cinderella “Sole for Young Souls” initiative, 142 employees donated shoes to hundreds of children who attend school barefoot in the extreme heat. To further support children in need, the team started a project bringing innovative village education centers to the poorest families, and collected over 1,000 used and new clothes around the holidays. Chennai’s team also held environmental awareness events for employees and their children, as well as a fun office-wide karaoke competition to raise funds for a palliative care organization.
SAN JOSE
This year the San Jose GIVE Team upped its efforts for the Share Your Lunch food drive by hosting a barbecue lunch featuring a local band and special appearances by executives John Donahoe, Lorrie Norrington and Scott Thompson. It paid off as a record $16,000 was raised for Second Harvest Food Bank from employee donations. The Family Giving Tree wish drive was very successful as well, and provided over 500 gifts for local children and more than $20,000 in executive donations. In conjunction with eBay Inc.’s 15 th anniversary, the San Jose GIVE team organized a series of 15 volunteer events over a three-week period where more than 300 employees served in food shelters, restored wetlands, made fleece blankets for children in local hospitals, and participated in other community projects.