The holidays are usually about giving gifts to your family and friends. But many times, we forget that holidays should be about giving to others. Luckily, there are companies out there that support their employees and communities by putting together amazing volunteer programs. Swedish employees volunteered their time in and around Seattle this year to help their community members. Read on to hear about their volunteer opportunities.
Pledging 20,000 hours
If you haven’t heard of Swedish, they serve the greater region of Seattle and Puget Sound with five hospital campuses. They also have a medical group network of ambulatory centers, and primary and specialty care locations throughout the Puget Sound. They also support Volunteers in Partnership. This is a program to help employees go outside the hospital walls and find volunteer opportunities. Employees can do this while earning donations for important community organizations. What an amazing opportunity for the community and the employees of Swedish.
In 2019, they started the Health for Good campaign, which is a campaign based on the idea that true health isn’t just taking care of yourself. It’s about using strength in mind and body to take care of each other. Because of this, the employees are using their efforts to help the Seattle community by giving back 20,000 total volunteer hours.
Hopelink for the holidays (https://www.hopelink.org/)
Another great way Swedish volunteered their service through employees, was through Hopelink’s program. Hopelink provides help to many community members by providing goods and services, online fundraising, housing and more.
Wellspring Family Services (https://wellspringfs.org/)
Wellspring Family Services helps families experiencing crisis take the next step forward. Volunteers have been helping in a baby boutique helping to sort and pack donated clothing and essential items for families. Swedish employees took different shifts helping employees at the baby boutique organize items that have been donated. The boutique services families with children ages 0-17 who are experiencing homelessness and poverty. They provide free children’s items that are new and gently used anywhere from clothes to diapers and formula.
Community Lunch
Another great way that Swedish employees volunteer is that they participate in Community Lunch. Community Lunch has volunteer lead cooks to prepare meals, chop ingredients, make sandwiches, greet guests and serve meals. No skills are required to volunteer here on a regular basis. The Community Lunch has opportunities for groups of employees to work in a kitchen at any of the two locations serving the homeless.
Volunteering at Lifelong (http://www.lifelong.org/)
If you love the idea of Community Lunch, there is another volunteer opportunity that Swedish employees have teamed up with this year as well. Lifelong’s volunteers in the Seattle location help repackage food, prepare and package meals, deliver nutritious food and lending hands at the offices or events. That’s just to name a few things that you can do with them. Lifelong also offers help to the community in need of case management, housing, youth outreach and more. Seattle’s community is so lucky to have so many community members and programs to help.
Do you want to give back?
After reading the amazing ways that Swedish has given back to its community, are you considering doing the same? We thought so! Mary’s Place Seattle has an amazing website that gives you choices in how you can volunteer. I wish there was a website like this in Spokane as I would love to pick and choose where I volunteer and what I did. Mary’s Place breaks it down by location for you and see which works best for you. Follow the link to see the innovative way in which Swedish has a Tending Machine at Sea-Tac Airport that benefits Mary’s Place this holiday season. (https://www.instagram.com/p/B6gU31ZlHMQ/)
