The twelfth edition of the Citi Global Community Day program will take place this Saturday, June 10. It is an extraordinary initiative under which the employees of the Bank and Citi Service Center along with their families and friends implement projects for the benefit of local communities.
The preparations for the Citi Global Community Day begin much earlier than the event itself, says Krzysztof Kaczmar, President of The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation, which coordinates the Citi Employee Volunteering Program. The first stage of the process involves the announcement of the competition for the employees, entitled "Wolontariusz na Bank!" (Volunteer to Bank On!). The employees work independently on their ideas for volunteering programs, which are then evaluated by the Jury of the Competition. Group leaders can apply for financing of PLN 3,000 to PLN 6,500. As many as 114 initiatives were submitted this year. Apart from the competition, the Citi Global Community Day also involves other initiatives, such as "eco Fun and Games" (eko Hocki Klocki) - classes for children promoting the idea of upcycling (creating new utility objects from waste materials and products), and the "RH-Active" project, under which we encourage people to donate blood. In recent years, we have also implemented "Live well" projects, during which our volunteers have conducted classes on healthy nutrition.
217 projects were implemented during the last year's edition of the Citi Global Community Day, and the employees of the Bank and Citi Service Center Poland, together with their families and friends, got involved in projects 3,299 times. The Citi Global Community Day is unique thanks to its formula - volunteers choose the recipients of their activities themselves, they actively search for groups which need assistance the most, and then get involved in creating and, next, implementing, assistance programs. In the 12 years of the employee volunteering program, over 1,400 projects have been implemented, bringing help to 200 thousand persons.
It is worth emphasizing that the Citi Global Community Day is an initiative of the whole Citi - says Krzysztof Kaczmar. Its last year's edition involved the participation of 85 000 volunteers from 91 countries - he adds.
Employee volunteering was launched in Citi Handlowy in 2005. Since then the program has brought support to nearly 240 000 persons. According to the surveys conducted by The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation, the volunteers most eagerly bring help to children, and they get involved in other forms of assistance than volunteering. Most of them declare that they feel fulfilled thanks to the volunteering activities, hence they recommend them to others.
