Many Hands Make Light the Work

By Carissa Cassin, Aspire Program Director, AT&T

If you have ever been part of a large volunteer event, you know that statement is true! Together, the many hands of AT&T employees have been making an impressive difference in their local communities…

When tornadoes devastated Oklahoma neighborhoods last spring, hundreds of AT&T employees organized to help families clean up and collect donations for those who had lost everything.

When community parks across the country needed more than just a little spring cleaning, more than 700 employees gathered to pitch in and remove over 3.5 tons of trash and debris.

And when students at risk of dropping out of high school need to know someone is rooting for them to succeed, our employees have and continue to invest thousands of hours mentoring to show they care.

In every case, the efforts of many people doing their part added up to an incredible impact.

We are proud to carry on our company’s tradition of service in April for National Volunteer Month. Through both large organized events and small acts on their own, AT&T volunteers continue to build on the 5.3 million volunteer hours that employees and retirees logged in 2013 alone.

This year we organized 10 events across the country cleaning up our communities in honor of Earth Day. Employee leaders stepped up to coordinate these events with local parks and recruited colleagues to contribute a few hours of their work day.

Over 715 employees took part in:

• Clearing up children’s play areas in Centennial Park in Atlanta
• Removing leaves and debris from Chicago’s McKinley Park
• Picking up trash around White Rock Lake in Dallas
• Painting the surroundings of Seidler Field in Plainfield, New Jersey
• Getting rid of invasive plants and weeds in Oakton, VA
• Cutting down vines and digging out roots in Washington’s Marymoor Park
• Clearing out more than a ton of trash from San Diego’s nature preserve habitat and river
• Planting a garden bed in Forest Park, St. Louis
• Picking up trash at Railroad Park in Birmingham, Alabama
• Laid mulch throughout a park in San Antonio

Volunteering and giving back embodies our belief that people matter – to each other, to our communities, and to our company. I would like to thank and congratulate the employees who helped make our communities even more beautiful!