12,000 Ford Volunteers Tackle 200 Community Projects During One Global Week of Caring

The sixth annual Ford Global Week of Caring runs through September 18. Ford employees will be joining with the Ford dealers and with retirees to, “build a better world through projects that aid the young, elderly and underserved in communities worldwide,” said a press release about this great undertaking.

The volunteers will be getting down and dirty with hammers and hoes to help make it possible to work on hundreds of community projects on six different continents, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Ford Global Week of Caring has been gathering up their employees for these very philanthropic projects for the last six years in a row and they don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

When Ford first began its Ford Global Week of Caring, it had 1,200 volunteers coming out to help. Today, that number has grown to more than 12,000 – all within the last six years.

A press release shared some of the great charitable and benevolent acts of generosity that the Ford volunteers do during Ford’s Global Week of Caring. About 750 volunteers in South Africa are renovating schools, planting trees and cleaning up parks. About 100 employees in the Philippines are volunteering to clean public areas, collect food and school supplies and about 200 employees in China are setting up a computer lab, sponsoring a school outing and cleaning parks.

The list goes on and on. Two hundred and thirty employees in Cambodia are planting 1,500 tropical trees along roadways. There will be renovating a school and donating equipment by 200 employees in Thailand, collecting clothes and sanitary supplies for impoverished girls by 100 employees in Kenya, mentoring teens, repairing playgrounds and helping elderly by 100 employees in Germany, cleaning beaches and forests, and repairing social institutions by 120 employees in Spain, restoring trails for wheelchair access in Belgium, providing meals, clothing and organizing medical check-ups for orphans in India, building houses in El Salvador and Honduras, painting a school and providing school supplies in Trinidad and Tobago, collecting food and toiletries, and repairing nursery and social service offices in Brazil, and installing playground equipment, distributing food, repairing schools and restoring environmentally-sensitive areas by more than a thousand Ford employees in the U.S.

Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services made this statement in the press release, "As America and the world reflect on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Ford and its employees are working together to realize our vision of a better world. Ford volunteers are helping local communities provide the necessary services to bring comfort and relief to people in need."