A backpack for back-to-school
Posted on August 4, 2006
Filed Under All, Taking Faith |
One of the good things (maybe the best thing) about working for Adobe Systems is the enduring ‘do the right thing’ culture engendered by founders John Warnock and Chuck Gieschke. Adobe is the best company, all things considered, I’ve ever worked for: for one thing, it has the least toxic work environment I’ve experienced in Silicon Valley. On top of that, Adobe believes, corporately, as well as individually, in giving back, in a way I’ve never seen elsewhere in high tech.
Adobe announced matching funds for Katrina and Tsunami victims, outside the company’s generous blanket annual charitable match, within days of those tragedies. Every quarter, every month, every week employees organize or are presented with opportunities to give. Want to go to New Orleans to build houses or set up wireless networks? Just go. No questions asked: your peers will pull together to cover, Adobe’s work will get done, and somewhere the world will be a little bit better.
Weekly, via the intranet and notices in the elevator, Adobe groups recruit cooks and servers for shelters in San Jose, and mentors for computer programs at schools in hardscrabble districts. Quarterly, there are calls for special needs. I have yet to go to Louisiana or the South Pacific (though Linda and I sent money to help with both), but I do watch for the special giving events.
The current ask is for back-to-school backpacks complete with a list of supplies for underpriveleged children, administered through a program called Raft. Normally the way this works is a ‘giving tree’ is set up near the 2 cafes in the Adobe complex, and people take a ‘wish’ card from the tree, buy the requisite stuff, and deposit the required goods in a space where wondeful samaritans pick up the offered items and distribute them.
Normally the wish cards disappear and the school backpacks, or holiday gifts, or kits for homeless people or whatever meets the current requirement, appear, overflowing the provided receptacles. By the last day before the deadline, 200 or so wish cards will have been reduced to a very few. This has become a small ministry for me: often the tree is empty by the deadline, but in those cases when it’s not, I try to pick the hardest wish card and fullfil it…
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A backpack for back-to-school…
nice…..