We arrived at Mr. and Mrs. Matthew’s house first thing in the morning. The couple is in their late 80s and has been very active in their community throughout their lives. Recently Mr. Matthews, a WWII veteran, had a stroke. He is currently in rehab, and Mrs. Matthews is living in the home by herself. There were several critical repairs that needed to be made to get the house back to a healthy environment for Mr. Matthews’ return.

Our large group broke up into teams of four and were assigned tasks — putting up siding, exterior painting, countertop and sink installation, hanging sheetrock, repairing baseboards in bedrooms, and more. I was on Team Siding— we were tasked with putting up siding on the house, caulking and then painting. My favorite part was when I got to use the nail gun!

After a full day’s work for the team, we completed all of the items on the list and were thrilled to have made the home efficient and safe for the Matthews. It was really cool to see employees from all different departments working together for a great cause. I took a moment to ask a few of my colleagues about their experience yesterday, and here’s what they had to say:

“Rebuilding Together provided an incredible opportunity to not only give back to our community, but to better get to know some of our wonderful coworkers as well. From painting and replacing siding to upgrading counters and kitchen cabinets, today allowed us the privilege of bettering the lives of our peers while working alongside our coworkers and friends in a unique and challenging environment. I look forward to working with Rebuilding Together during our next volunteer outing, and hope to have even more volunteers join us for our next visit.” Pace Koenig

 “This was my first GDI event here at Citrix and it was a really great experience. It was awesome to be able to actually be hands-on and to see what our team was able to accomplish. Also, meeting the people in our community that we were lending a hand to was incredibly rewarding. We have amazing people here in our area and to be able to give back to them and our Veterans is a great thing.” William Booth

Here are a few pictures from our day:

I’m looking forward to next year’s Global Day of Impact already! Is your organization involved in community service activities? I’d love to hear more about the opportunities you’ve organized. Share them below.

Founded in 1969, Tammy Lynn Center for Developmental Disabilities provides educational, residential, therapeutic and family support services to children and adults with special needs.  The Center’s goal is to provide the individuals it serves the opportunity to maximize their abilities in a loving, nurturing environment.  I first heard about TLC through a local charity organization called Band Together, which uses the power of live music to raise funds and awareness for a partnering nonprofit – this year, being TLC – and organizes the largest charitable music festival in NC every year.  Citrix ShareFile is a sponsor of the Band Together main event featuring Lyle Lovett this year, so it was an obvious decision to partner with TLC for a GDI date as well.

True to their mission, I found that TLC is a very loving, nurturing place to be.  The entire staff welcomed us with open arms, giving us a full orientation, tour of their facility and introducing us to nearly all of their residents and students.  In our orientation, we learned that TLC offers so much to the local special needs community: early intervention services, day services including a preschool, a respite care program, residential services both center-based and in the community and therapy services.

The first half of our day was spent directly interacting and spending time with the residents and students, which was so much fun!  We brought a craft activity to work on which included creating rows of flowers with cupcake holders, popsicle sticks, construction paper, and buttons.  Everyone really seemed to enjoy this project, which provided the students a hands-on, sensory stimulating activity to work on.  After we finished the craft project, we got to interact with the preschool classes at recess – helping them play basketball, soccer, hide and seek, and swing.  I think many of our employees wished we had recess here at Citrix after having such a great time with the kids!  We wrapped up the day stuffing gift bags for the Band Together main event and making paper airplanes for the audience to fly at the concert.

It was such a privilege to be able to witness firsthand and be a part of what TLC offers to over 400 families in the Wake County community every year.  Visit the Tammy Lynn Center and Band Together websites to learn more about both organizations and how you can help make a difference for those with developmental disabilities!

Check out some pictures that we took during our time at TLC.

Our volunteers pledged to shave in exchange for donations, each setting their own personal goals. I am pleased to announce that the Citrix ShareFile team raised over $5,000 (200% of the original goal), and all ShareFile volunteers exceeded their original donation goals!

We are very excited to have partnered with St. Baldrick’s to support such a great cause and grateful to our volunteers and donors for their generosity. Check out some of the pictures from the event below.

Prior to deciding to partner with St. Baldrick’s, we were presented with the facts about childhood cancer- and they’re devastating. More children are lost to cancer in the U.S. than any other disease. Before reaching their twentieth birthdays, about 1 in every 300 boys and 1 in 333 girls will have cancer. Worldwide, a child is diagnosed every 3 seconds.* These statistics were eye opening to us, and we realized we want to do something to help support the research for a cure.

On March 2^nd, the ShareFile team will be at Napper Tandy’s Irish Pub in downtown Raleigh (near our new office space) fundraising for the foundation. The ShareFile volunteer shaving starts at 2pm.

The ShareFile participants each have a goal that they would like to hit (money goes directly to St. Baldrick’s) before shaving their head. Here is a list of the brave ShareFile employees who have signed up:

Laura Girasole- Associate Corporate Sales Representative

Ryan Little- Account Manager

Ben Pauley- Associate Corporate Sales Representative

Chris Braga- Manager, Corporate Sales

Michael Dombroski- Corporate Sales Intern

Nick Woerner- Manager, Account Management

Mariano Ballon- Associate Corporate Sales Representative

Charlie Healy- Associate Corporate Sales Representative

Thomas Ranaudo-  Corporate Sales Intern

William Booth- Associate Corporate Sales Representative

Want to help these participants reach their goal and get their head shaved? Visit the Citrix ShareFile St. Baldrick’s page to donate. Stay tuned for pictures from the event!

*Source: http://www.stbaldricks.org/

We set up trees throughout the office for each category of donations- food, clothing, toys and also a money tree for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. It was great to see the trees being filled as the days passed by. Each time an employee donated to a particular tree, they received an ornament with their name on it to hang on the tree. They also placed their donated items under the tree.

For the food tree, we collected non-perishable food items to be donated to the Raleigh Branch of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, which service 13 counties in central North Carolina. In the counties served by the Raleigh branch, over 233,694 individuals are at risk for hunger; 79,990 of those are children and over 11% are 65 years and older. Together, ShareFile employees donated 554 cans to the Food Bank.

For the toys tree, we collected new and unwrapped toys to benefit the Salvation Army’s Christmas Cheer Campaign. Each year, a makeshift toy shop is temporarily set up during the month of December, and needy families have the opportunity to shop for free for their children. We were so grateful to have temporary toy shop in the office- some of the employees wanted to play with the toys under the tree! We collected 79 toys that were donated directly to the Salvation Army for children who may not receive toys during the holidays otherwise.

Next was our clothing tree. We partnered with Raleigh Rescue Mission to run a clothing drive. Prior to the drive, we learned that 11.5% of residents right in our neighborhood are living in poverty. We were on a mission to provide clothing for those less fortunate. Together we donated 125 large bags (each with over 25 items of clothing) to families faced with homelessness.

Our final tree was the money tree- there really was money growing on this tree! The money donated for the cause went directly to the American Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief efforts.  As a company we donated over $3,300 to support relief efforts, like food and hygiene kits for those affected by the storm.

It was really awesome to see employees rallying together to give freely of their resources to help those in need around us! Check out some pictures of our drive below. More pictures from the drive can be found on the ShareFile Facebook page.

There were representatives from various areas of health and wellness including: Rex Healthcare, Cigna, Ronald McDonald house, Meals on Wheels, Jenny Craig,  Eye Care Associates, Bank of America, and many others. Employees had the ability to attend the health fair and talk with a dietitian, have a de-stress massage, complete a DermaScan and bone density scan, learn about local volunteer opportunities, get a biometric screening, and much more!

Overall the event was a huge success. Take a look at some of the pictures below. See more picture from the event on the ShareFile Facebook page.

What are you doing to promote the health and wellness of your employees?

One of the events was a 24 Hour Telethon held on September 7-8 at the warehouse of the Food Bank of Raleigh. The telethon, hosted by Gregory Ng, the host of the popular web series FreezerBurns and Chief Strategy Officer at Brooks Bell, featured a live 24 hour stream of the Food Bank. There were a ton of activities at the telethon including a social media mixer, a “Morning Buzz” segment, a “Midnight Madness” volunteer activity, and interviews. The goal of the telethon was to raise $20,000 and 3,000 pounds of food.

ShareFile’s success comes from the support of our community so we were happy to be a patron supporter of the telethon. During the week of August 20^th, we held our own week-long canned food drive in the office. By the end of the week, we collected 2,264 cans or about 1,700 pounds of food!  We went to the Food Bank on September 8 to deliver the cans to the telethon. The mood at the telethon was really exciting and positive. It felt great to be there and help out a really important cause.

Jarrett Horne and myself sat down to do an interview with Gregory for a few minutes discussing news about ShareFile as well as our involvement with the community. During the interview, we presented a $500 check to the Food Bank of Raleigh along with the cans. We had a great time! You can watch our interview here (we start around the 36 minute mark).

I’m happy to share that the 24 Hour Telethon exceeded their goals in raising over $20,000 and over 3,000 pounds of food. Congratulations to the Food Bank of Raleigh! However if you’re still interested in getting involved with Hunger Awareness Month, there are more activities happening at the Food Bank for the remainder of September. You can find out what’s happening here!

When I saw the house we were assigned to, I guessed we would be done in 3 hours. However, I quickly learned there’s a difference between putting vinyl siding on a house, and correctly putting vinyl siding on a house.  The “factory cut” edge should always be on top of overlapping pieces, seams shouldn’t line up, and the siding on one wall needs to line up with the siding on an adjacent wall.  Needless to say, there was a lot of measuring, re-measuring, and leveling, but we eventually made quite a bit of progress all around the house.

The experience was really enjoyable and the work was rewarding. It was fun getting a chance to do an entirely different kind of work with fellow co-workers.  Habitat was very well organized and had plenty of folks on-hand to help instruct us. If you’re looking for a place to volunteer, I would recommend you check them out as there are lots of opportunities to get involved.

To view more of our volunteer work, visit the ShareFile Facebook page.

At the house, we spent the day cleaning the common areas while most of the families were out, so that the living, dining and computer rooms, as well as the halls and parking lot, were clean for their return in the evening. Some of our team also spent much of the day sorting through the pop tabs from soda cans that Ronald McDonald House collects for additional funding. Collecting tabs may seem like a small contribution, but the House raised over $23,000 dollars last year from recycling the tabs alone! These funds allow families who cannot afford the $10 fee per night that Ronald McDonald requests to stay at the house.

We are grateful to Ronald McDonald House of Durham for letting us spend the day learning about how they carry out their mission and working with them! We are already diligently working to collect our pop tabs so that we can continue to support the house and the families it serves. Visit the Ronald McDonald House of Durham website to learn more about their work, and find out how you can volunteer or donate money, supplies or pop tabs.

To see pictures from our other community service events, visit the ShareFile Facebook page.

For those unfamiliar, Relay for Life is a fundraising event organized in communities across the globe by the American Cancer Society.  Participants camp out around a track, while members of each team take turns walking around the track for the duration of the event. Walkers honor the people in their life who have been affected by the disease – survivors, those who are fighting the disease, and those who have already lost the battle.  Relay is a family-friendly environment, catering to the entire community with an array of food, games, and activities to provide entertainment and fundraising.  With cancer now a leading cause of death in the world, money raised at the event goes towards research, treatment, and awareness of the disease.

The ShareFile Relay for Life team took part in fundraising efforts by holding a bake sale at our Raleigh office, raising $440 in one morning!  We also accepted personal donations prior to the event.  The night of Relay, we set up a campsite where we held a cornhole tournament for attendees to participate in, which was a success.  We also assisted with general logistics and the Kids Walk portion of the event, which included monitoring the bounce house for children and assisting with crafts and games.  The only downfall of the evening was the weather – it stormed off and on, causing the event to end early at 9 pm.

Despite the stormy weather, Relay for Life of Leesville/Brier Creek/RTP was an extremely successful event, raising an overall total of $136,440 for the American Cancer Society!  With every donation large or small, the American Cancer Society is one step closer to finding a cure.  We here at ShareFile are very honored to have helped Relay for Life as a part of our corporate citizenship initiative.

 Check out the photos below to see how much fun we had Relaying for a Cure!

For this event, we traveled to SEEDS community garden in Durham to spend a day helping out. SEEDS is a great organization that gives city dwellers a place to grow vegetables on their own garden plot, and they also provide low-cost educational programs for kids. Our group was able to help the SEEDS staff with upkeep of the garden and structures so that visitors and gardeners can continue to enjoy it.

Our biggest task for the day was starting the update of the garden’s gazebo. Some of our volunteers got to use an auger drill to dig holes for new posts for the gazebo and for a new tool shed that will be coming soon this summer. For the less power tool inclined, there were plenty of other projects. We painted sealant on the garden’s beautiful, handmade gate, prepared a new planter for potatoes, and laid new mulch. It was hard work, but we had a great time!

Thank you very much to SEEDS for letting us spend the day in the garden! If you want to volunteer or learn more, check out the SEEDS website.

Keep an eye out for more information on our Global Day of Impact events, coming soon! To check out more pictures of Global Day of Impact at SEEDS, visit the ShareFile Facebook Page.

For our Global Day of Impact, we headed to Carolina Tiger Rescue, a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary whose mission is saving and protecting wild cats in captivity and in the wild. Housing 14 tigers, 3 lions, and an assortment of other wildcats from ocelots to binturongs, the Rescue takes in animals from bad situations and cares for them for life. Many of the animals were used irresponsibly by their previous owners. A lion named Sebastian was part of a Haunted House in Texas, while another lion named Tarzan was used as an attraction at a hotel in Mexico. Two of the tigers, Rajah and Kaela, were found wandering a highway near Charlotte, NC.

Each of these examples highlights a big problem that Carolina Tiger Rescue is working to educate the public on, namely that many states (including ShareFile’s home state, North Carolina) have little to no regulation around the ownership of exotic wildlife as pets. Naturally most private owners are not equipped to properly care for and feed large wildcats, and as a result wildcats kept as pets often suffer from neglect and abuse. The Rescue is opposed to the use of wild animals for purposes other than education or breeding in accordance with Species Survival and Population Management Plans, and they are working towards the day when wildcats are not owned as pets or used for entertainment purposes.

As you’d imagine, it takes a lot of work to care for so many big cats, and Carolina Tiger Rescue volunteers help with things like construction, maintenance, tour guiding, and animal care. For our volunteer day, we helped lay down a road through the woods to open up vehicle access to new tiger cages that were being built at the Rescue. It was hard work shoveling clay and laying down old telephone poles, but we were happy to help the Rescue expand their facilities.

After our work was over, we enjoyed a guided tour of the Rescue, and were able to get to know some of the cats. We were usually within 4 to 5 feet of the animals, and so, unlike at most zoos, we could actually see them! It was awesome to be able to view these powerful animals up close and funny to see how friendly they were – we were usually greeted with Chewbacca-like grunts by the more sociable ones. All in all, it was a great day and I’d highly recommend volunteering or visiting Carolina Tiger Rescue if you’re ever in the area. They also accept donations of cash or needed supplies, and you can even help support their mission by adopting a tiger or other animal!

With support of our executive team, an awesome part of this program is our Global Day of Impact. This is a day that employees can use to volunteer at an organization of their choice.  Last year more than 3,500 Citrix employees, across 5 continents, volunteered to serve the community and change the world. Here at ShareFile, we are gearing up to serve our local community. There are various projects taking place and we are excited to work together as a team to impact our local community.

Stay tuned for follow-ups from the volunteer days. Be sure to check our Facebook page for pictures from the events in the coming weeks! 

Image source: Citrix Simply Serve

This past Saturday the ShareFile team had the opportunity to support a great cause, the Special Olympics of North Carolina. We raised money for the cause by participating in a 5K. Proceeds from this event went directly to the Special Olympics of NC in an effort to support the 38,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities that participate in the year-round sports programming. Together, the ShareFile participants raised over $600 for the Special Olympics of NC.

Check out a couple of group shots before and after the race. For more pictures of the event, visit our Facebook page.