Striving to change the world Community Sun

Have you noticed the amount of stuff being thrown away recently in our Sun offices?  Perfectly good materials such as binders, manila folders, pens, mouse pads, swag.  The list goes on and on.  You have probably seen the piles in your building.  Once it leaves the office, you know where it goes....our landfills.

But what if we could change that?  What if we could recycle what our colleagues leave for trash.  Donate Sun swag to local nonprofits.  Organize all the paper for recycling.  Donate binders for school children to use. We need your help to do this!

A group of committed people at Sun are trying to make this happen.  Working with Facilities, we are trying to make recycling easy at Sun's large campuses.  Facilities will set out containers for employees to unload their office supplies.  Volunteers will then sort through these items determining what is salvageable.  This is where you come in!  We are seeking volunteers in Burlington, Santa Clara, Menlo Park and Broomfield to help on a weekly basis to sort through the items.  An hour a week will make a huge difference to our landfills as well as the not-for-profit beneficiaries that receive the goods.

If you are interested, please contact me.  Unfortunately this opportunity is for the Sun workforce only.  Just another way Sun is being a socially responsible company.

Here is what volunteer Gail Truman wrote about her volunteer experience:

My volunteer gig is all about saving the farm lands from development out here in the California SF Bay area. But in so doing I get to have tons of fun - visiting dairies, olive ranches, oyster farms (yumm!) and going hiking -- for free! Except for my time as a chaperone.

The Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) is a private, member-supported, nonprofit organization created in 1980 by a coalition of local ranchers and environmentalists to permanently preserve Marin County farmlands for agricultural use. MALT acquires agricultural conservation easements on farmland in voluntary transactions with landowners, and so far has permanently protected more than 40,500 acres of land on over 60 family farms and ranches.

MALT raises money and awareness in part by giving tours that the public (like you!) can sign up for. That's where volunteers come in. We work with the farmer/rancher who is giving the tour, to make sure everything runs smoothly on the day of the event. The attendees get a great insight into local farming, and us volunteers get to talk to them about MALT and generally enjoy the afternoon or morning.

If you're interested in taking your family to a farm, a hike, some hands-on learning about Urban farming - or  more - visit MALT.org and check out what's on offer. And please buy local, organic produce and meat; it all helps keep these farmers here. And their land for us to enjoy.

To Sun's SCA Employees: 

Have you noticed the amount of stuff your colleagues have been leaving in the trash as they clean their offices?  Binders, manila folders, pens, mouse pads, swag.  The list goes on and on.  You have probably seen the piles in your building.  Once it leaves the office, you know where it goes....our landfills.

But what if we could change that?  What if we could recycle what our colleagues leave for trash.  Donate old Sun swag to local nonprofits.  Organize all the paper for recycling.  Donate binders for school children to use. We need your help to do this!

A group of committed people at Sun are trying to make this happen at SCA.  Working with Facilities, we are trying to make recycling easy at Sun.  Facilities will set out containers at our major campuses for employees to unload their office supplies.  Volunteers will then sort through these items determining what is salvageable.  This is where you come in.  We are seeking a volunteer Team Manager in SCA to head up a small team of volunteers to help in the next month.  You will work with a representative from Facilities, and oversee volunteers one to four times a month to help sort through the items, doing easy tasks such as taking paper out of binders for recycling. 

Consider being a Team Manager for the Santa Clara campus.  Contact me for details.  And be on the look out for details on the initiative.