On June 22 Citi's 8th Global Community Day will take place. This is a unique initiative where Bank employees and their friends and families carry out projects to benefit their local communities. Poland has taken part in the program since 2005, as one of over 90 countries in the world included in this Citi initiative.
Preparations for Citi's Global Community Day begin far in advance of the event - says Krzysztof Kaczmar, President of the The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation, which coordinates the Employee Volunteering Program at Citi Handlowy. The first step is the announcement of a competition for Citi Handlowy employees called "Volunteer for the Bank!". The best initiatives are chosen by a committee, and the prize for volunteers is funding of their ideas (this year an impressive 113 projects were submitted for the competition). We also carry out campaigns such as "Eko Hocki Klocki" - activities for children promoting the idea of upcycling, or creating new usable objects from used materials - and the project "Blood Relatives" where we encourage people to give blood. This year our volunteers are also involved, already for the second time, in the initiative "One, two, three - you are a Varsovian!", coordinated by the Warsaw Uprising Museum - he adds.
In last year's Global Community Day, over 1600 volunteers from Citi Handlowy and Citi companies as well as members of their families and friends carried out 125 projects. Citi's Global Community Day is unique thanks to its formula - volunteers themselves choose the beneficiaries of their activities, actively seeking groups that need assistance the most, and then prepare a program of help and later implement it. During the 8 years that employee volunteering has existed, as part of Citi's Global Community Day, 695 projects have been completed, helping over 122,000 people.
It should be stressed that Citi's Global Community Day is an action involving all of Citigroup - says Ewa Wojsławowicz, Coordinator of the Employee Volunteering Program at Citi Handlowy. Last year 100,000 volunteers from 92 countries took part - she adds.
Employee volunteering has functioned at Citi Handlowy since 2005. During this time, Bank volunteers have engaged in community service over 12,000 times, carrying out 1068 projects. Over the 8 years of the program, help has reached nearly 140,000 people. According to surveys conducted by The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation, Bank volunteers like to help children the most, but are also involved in forms of assistance other than volunteering. One-third of them designate 1% of their taxes to NGOs, and over half donate food. Also popular among Citi volunteers is donating blood.
What volunteers themselves say about the Employee Volunteering Program at Citi Handlowy can be seen on the Citi Handlowy channel on YouTube.
