Happy New Year! Throughout the holiday season Salesforce.com employees across the world went above and beyond. With more than 200,000 collective volunteer hours, we’ve assembled ‘welcome home baskets’ for homeless families transitioning into housing, gathered toys for needy children, built gingerbread houses with inner-city kids, served meals to the homeless, and raised funds for Japan relief efforts, just to name a few!

Take a look at at the breadth of holiday volunteer activities across the globe.

One event in particular made quite an impact on everyone involved. A team of current and former Salesforce.com employees in Heathrow took on a very special event: hosting a Christmas party for The Heathrow Special Needs Farm. Philip Kenley, our Foundation Program Manager in London, recounts the event…

The Heathrow Special Needs Farm caters solely to those with disabilities and has about 300 visitors a week. With only one employee, the farm thrives solely on donations and volunteers. All its livestock is rescued or dumped, and once in the farm, is there for life – nothing goes for slaughter. It has horses, donkeys, ponies, goats, pigs, chickens, guinea pigs, geese, cats, rabbits, etc. There is a riding school for the disabled as well, which is the only service it charges for.

 About 70 salesforce and ex salesforce employees signed up to run their annual Christmas party, which all their clients were invited to. Turning up at daybreak, we turned the riding school into a festive area with half a dozen marquees that were used for games – Santa shy (think coconut shy with Santas!), fishing games, tombola's, lucky dips, food, music, choirs and face painting. 

The weather was cold and sunny and the party was a massive success – probably the best Foundation event I have been involved in. To see the joy on the faces of severely handicapped people having such a good time was remarkable. I received many comments after from our employees who were humbled by the experience. I am positive we have started a regular Salesforce.com event.

Check out some photos of the volunteering activities here.

Many thanks to our employees and nonprofit partners for their truly inspirational dedication to the communities they live and work in. We look forward to what’s to come this year!