The Volunteers
Beyond their economic mission, modern corporations seek continuous improvement in living standards in communities where they are present. Management textbooks call it Corporate Citizenship. For individual employees, that philosophy of social responsibility means getting involved.
54°N/12°E TRACK AND FIELD STARS IN TRAINING Kids can sweat, too: Employees of the sales team of DaimlerChrysler Bank coached kids from the Mühl Rosin Athletic Club near Rostock for two solid days. The region is economically disadvantaged, and the young track and field talents were having trouble preparing adequately for their upcoming state championship. Within the framework of the “Ideas That Move!” initiative, Dalibor Rezic, Leasing and Financing Consultant DaimlerChrysler Bank, tapped two colleagues who were once career athletes: Heiko Balz won an Olympic silver medal in wrestling in Barcelona in 1992, while Holger Schlepps was a world silver medalist in high diving in 1998. The DaimlerChrysler Bank founded the “Ideas That Move!” program in the summer of 2006 to help employees dedicate their free time to clubs, community organizations, and charitable institutions. Around 20 projects have been supported to date – with evident success: The young athletes from Mühl Rosin took home 15 medals from the state meet – five each in gold, silver, and bronze. | ||||||||
48°N/9°E BICYCLES FOR CHERNOBYL A photograph taken near Chernobyl provided the impetus. It showed boys and girls with cancer, playing together in an orphanage with their only toy – a broken model car. “When I saw that, I knew we had to do something,” Sven Giesler says. He is Team Leader, Production and Materials Technology/Process Engineering Materials and spokesperson of the Environment Working Group at Daimler in Stuttgart. With around 20 colleagues, he organized a bicycle roundup. The collection was a big success: Employees in the Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim, Germany, plant collected 100 used children’s bikes for an orphanage in the city of Gomel in Belarus. Daimler added 200 PCs with monitors, networking capability, and operating systems in Russian. In spring of 2007, a convoy from the organization Help for the Children of Chernobyl delivered the bicycles and computers, along with medicines and powdered milk, to Belarus. | ||||||||
48°N/9°E APPRENTICES AND THE HANDICAPPED An eye-catcher: Freshly remodeled and brightly painted, a former shed became the pride of the village of Tennental in Baden-Württemberg. The neighboring residential project offers housing for the handicapped and non-handicapped. The Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, donated the labor of 40 young apprentices, who helped residents turn a 250-square-meter (2,700-square-foot) wood frame building into a community center. They installed electricity and water, laid new flooring, and refinished the walls. Their involvement directly benefits project residents, but the apprentices profit as well: “The young people improved their communication skills, sense of responsibility, and self-reliance,” Plant Director Eberhard Haller says. Each year, apprentices spend a week doing community service in Tennental. Earlier projects have included footpaths, a pond, and a facility for drying hay. | ||||||||
Please note
The information in the "Sustainability" section mainly refers to the 2006 reporting year. It thus may not always reflect the com- pany's current situation.
