Top execs build a playground in Toronto

Initiative challenges businesses to support employee volunteerism

Twenty of Canada's major corporate leaders donated their time last week to build a playground for kids living in Lawrence Heights, identified as one of Toronto's at-risk neighbourhoods.

The 20 executives, part of the newly formed Corporate Council on Volunteering, were accompanied by a contingent of more than 500 employee volunteers and more than 100 community residents.

This event kicks off the council's first Corporate Challenge on Volunteering, an initiative that challenges Canadian businesses of all sizes to support employee volunteerism and raise 150,000 volunteer hours by the end of the year.

"This remarkable group of corporate leaders are demonstrating an enormous commitment to volunteerism," said Volunteer Canada president Marlene Deboisbriand.

"These people care about healthy communities and about supporting each other. They are also powerful agents for change, providing an excellent example at a time when Canada needs to catch up with the rest of the world in this kind of corporate-community collaborative effort."

Some of the executives who participated included Annette Verschuren, president of the Home Depot Canada; George Cope, president and COO of Bell Canada, Kevin Layden, president and COO of Best Buy Canada; and Phil Sorgen, president of Microsoft Canada.

"The Council is a great example of how Canada's corporate community is supporting its employees so they have the opportunity to give back," said Home Depot's Verschuren. "Each of the companies represented today recognize that we have a responsibility to the communities, in which we live, work and play."

According to the 2004 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, more than half (57 per cent) of volunteers who are employed, reported receiving some form of non-monetary support from their employer for volunteering. Also, 29 per cent of them said their employer had programs or policies in place to encourage volunteerism.

Other participating companies were Canfor Corporation, Ernst and Young LLP, IBM Canada, Investors Group, KPMG LLP, Mansfield Communications, Manulife Financial, MBNA Canada Bank, Molson Canada, Power Corporation of Canada, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, RBC Financial Group, Staples Business Depot, UPS Canada, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, and Wal-Mart Canada.

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