To mark our 70th anniversary in the UK and Abbott’s long history of global citizenship, we introduced the ‘Caring for our Community’ programme in 2007 to formally encourage employees to get involved in local community volunteering. The programme aimed to make volunteer projects challenging, fun and rewarding team activities, which benefit our local communities.

Around 220 staff – more than a tenth of our total employees – volunteered in 2007. With Abbott’s support, each member of these teams contributed seven hours of company time, making a total of up to 70 hours’ volunteering per team.

Team Challenges ranged from creating a sensory garden for a hospital, laying a woodland path at an adult disability centre to painting a mural for a local school. We worked with Windsor & Maidenhead Business to Community to organise our head office projects & Business in the Community for regional challenges.

Here’s what some of our staff had to say about the experience:

"The fact the company donated employee time to participate was motivating and has enabled more people to get involved."

"A great day and a really positive contribution to patients’ lives."

"I felt a very worthwhile sense of satisfaction about how well we worked as a team."