Volunteerism at its best

Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, is celebrating its Manila Global Center's 3rd anniversary this April. To commemorate the occasion, employees from different divisions of the company rendered man-hours as part of its annual Volunteer for the Community Day.

I have been part of the company for a year now and I am very fortunate to be one of the employees who share skills and resources with the communities wherein we live, which is a key element of our corporate responsibility.

Last year, there were over 400 employees who volunteered to do different community services in different parts of Manila. I chose to be with the Quezon City Memorial Circle clean-up project. For two hours, we picked up litters and dried leaves which were scattered in the area. The garbage were segregated to biodegradable and non-biodegrable, while the dried leaves were placed in a sack for composting.

2010 Volunteer for the Community Day

QCMC Clean-up

This year, I volunteered to help with the repainting of the ceilings and walls of a building in UP-PAUW (Philippine Association of University Women - UP Chapter) Child Care Center. The institution was put up to provide care and education to UP employees' children. Non-UP employee parents may also enroll their children in the said school.

UP-PAUW welcome tarpaulin

Preparation

The volunteers were warmly welcomed by the teachers and officers of the school. According to them, the buildings really need repainting before the school year starts in June and it was timely that Thomson Reuters came in to volunteer to do the works. The materials like paint brushes, paint trays and hardiflex plywoods were provided and donated by Thomson Reuters.

From old and dirty blue color of the building, we repainted it to become sunny yellow. We did the base coat up to the finishing coat. It took us only three hours to finish painting the whole building.

Primer

Second coating

Because of my experience last year at the QCMC clean-up, I decided to join the volunteer activities of Thomson Reuters every year. It was really a fun and rewarding experience knowing that the little help that each of one of us contributed, when combined, was a great help for the institutions that would last for years.

I am now looking forward to the upcoming volunteer activities that Thomson Reuters has already lined up for us this year. May many more employees be inspired (like me) to become volunteers for the community.

Thomson Reuters volunteers for UP-PAUW CCC