250 Volunteers Join Day of Caring

10 November 2011

• ExxonMobil Day of Caring will be held on Wednesday 16 November, 2011.
• The volunteers will be busy packing Christmas hampers, cooking for the elderly, gardening, fixing fences, sorting emergency relief items, recycling clothes, cleaning and painting.
• The annual corporate volunteering effort involves 250 employees and is the largest in Australia facilitated by United Way.

Melbourne:  ExxonMobil Australia today announced that its annual Day of Caring will be held next week on Wednesday 16 November, 2011.

The Day of Caring, which is one of the largest corporate volunteering programs in Australia, will involve 250 employees helping 21 organisations in local communities where ExxonMobil Australia operates.  This is the ninth year that the company has run the program.

The teams of volunteers will be busy packing Christmas hampers, cooking for the elderly, gardening, fixing fences, sorting emergency relief items, recycling clothes, cleaning and painting.

The initiative is run with the assistance of United Way, a national non-profit organisation that promotes community volunteering and helps match companies with worthwhile volunteering projects.

The ExxonMobil volunteers will assist a broad range of community organisations in Melbourne, Gippsland, Western Port and Perth, including Cancer Council of Victoria, Alzheimer’s Australia, SIDS & Kids, Salvation Army, Foodbank, St Vincent de Paul Society, Vision Australia and Guide Dogs Victoria.

United Way Melbourne General Manager Penny van der Sluys, said “United Way is pleased to facilitate the ExxonMobil Day of Caring, which is a good example of how community organisations and business can work well together to make a significant contribution to the community.”

Volunteers play an important role in supporting community services.  “The Day of Caring provides an opportunity for our employees to provide tangible assistance to community service organisations and it is one of many programs we support to promote the importance of volunteering,” said John Dashwood, Chairman, ExxonMobil Australia.  Every year ExxonMobil employees devote over 10,000 hours to community service through the company’s volunteering programs.

Media contacts:

Penny van der Sluys, General Manager United Way Melbourne, phone 03 9650 5900

Lisa Trood, Community Relations Manager, ExxonMobil Australia,
phone 03 9270 3440 or 0438 113 440