Recently, I visited Arletta Jorgenson, an American single mother of three who relies on food pantries to help feed her family (see video below). Arletta, who lost her job as an administrative assistant three years ago and has survived on public assistance ever since, reminds us that financial hardship can happen to anyone – our neighbors, our cousins, colleagues…and us.
In the U.S., 49 million people are “food insecure” (families with at least one member who sometimes is hungry because they can’t afford enough food), according to Feeding America. These people aren’t necessarily homeless – or even unemployed. In fact, more than a third of them have at least one working adult.
For those of you who may not be aware, we at Cisco take our commitment to our communities very seriously, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have fun when we volunteer!
On August 17th, over 20 volunteers from the Cisco Enterprise and Mid-market Marketing group gave their time to support InnVision, Silicon Valley’s leading provider of housing and services for homeless families and individuals:
InnVision is a primary gateway for homeless families and individuals seeking shelter and resources that lead to self-sufficiency. Our comprehensive system of care promotes self-worth and dignity at multiple facilities throughout Silicon Valley, including shelters, longer- term housing options and service centers, each equipped to meet emergency and transitional needs of diverse, at-risk people. InnVision is…the Way Home!
Volunteers spent the day sorting clothing for InnVision’s store, prepping food for daily meals, and reading stories to children.
Kevin, Peter and I were tasked with sorting clothing. Being from the Manufacturing team, we couldn’t resist applying the lessons learned from the Manufacturing industry towards our volunteer duties. Recalling Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations“, we quickly broke into teams for a proper division of labor. Safety is a top priority, so latex gloves were distributed to the sorting teams to follow OSHA guidelines. We carefully optimized our WIP to ensure that Bottlenecks --which threatened to shut down our line via the Bullwhip effect — were not created. Additionally, we applied classical queueing theory using exponential distribution to carefully model our Poisson processes. Read More »
Last December, Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers commented that he “can think of no better way to mark Cisco’s 25th year than focusing even more of our employees’ talents and energy on community service.” To commemorate this milestone, all Cisco employees were challenged to each dedicate four hours to community service, or 200,000 total employee volunteer hours. Nearly a year later, Cisco employees surpassed our goal by volunteering 222,000 hours with nonprofit organizations worldwide. It’s this spirit of stepping up and volunteering that often provides an even greater resource than the checks we write.
I recently learned that one in four residents in the San Francisco Bay Area is at risk for hunger, compared to one in six nationally. And more than 1 billion people worldwide are undernourished. Obviously, there is need and we all need to do more.
As one of the largest employers in Silicon Valley, we were proud to kick off Cisco’s Global Hunger Relief Campaign at the Second Harvest Food Bank warehouse in San Jose with an annual executive food sort event. Second Harvest recently launched the largest food and fund drive in the nation. Cisco’s goal is to raise a minimum of US$1 million in employee donations, which with matching funds, will provide over 8 million meals around the world.
