Posts Tagged With: corporate volunteer program

Fidelity Cares for the Dallas Zoo by the numbers

Fidelity volunteers from the Westlake campus make magnets

Fidelity volunteers make magnets at their Westlake campus

Most people probably don’t wake up in the morning and drive to work with the intention of cleaning up an

Volunteers gather mulch for the elephant exhibit

Volunteers gather mulch for the elephant exhibit

elephant walkway or making a bridge for barnyard animals, but for nearly 700 employees at the Fidelity campus in Westlake, that’s exactly what how they spent their workday.

It’s Fidelity Cares Day, an annual day of volunteering and giving back to local communities for Fidelity Investments employees around the world. And today we sent eight Dallas Zoo staff members to the campus to lead a series of unique projects that will benefit our animals, conservation partners, and the Dallas community. Plus, about 100 Fidelity volunteers spent the day at the Zoo, working with zookeepers on various projects from landscaping to habitat clean-up.

“This amazing day of service is a great way for volunteers to further the Dallas Zoo’s goals, impact, and mission of engaging people and saving wildlife,” said Nicole Sweeney, Dallas Zoo’s Corporate Giving Manager.

Painted canvases for the 96 elephant mosaic

Painted canvases for the 96 elephant mosaic

Our volunteers kicked off Fidelity Cares Day by making magnets – but these magnets aren’t your average fridge trinket. Each one is made of a piece of canvas painted by an animal at the Dallas Zoo. Fidelity volunteers adhered magnetic strips and labels to the back of approximately 970 of these artistic creations. These masterpieces will be sold at Bishop Arts Districts’ The Local Oak restaurant this Friday-Sunday (May 4-6), and will benefit the Dallas Chapter of the American Association of Zoo Keepers (AAZK).

Fidelity staff also contributed to Wildlife Conservation Society’s 96 Elephants campaign, which raises awareness about elephant poaching. Fittingly, 96 volunteers painted a canvas to remind Zoo visitors that every day in Africa, 96 elephants are killed for their ivory. The hanging mosaic will be placed in the Simmon’s Base Camp as a symbol of our dedication to elephant conservation.

Keeper Jenn Lim led the goat bridge construction project

Keeper Jenn Lim led the goat bridge project

The next project required a little more elbow grease. Roughly 25 volunteers spent four hours assembling a goat bridge – yep, a bridge for our goats. They sanded, screwed, hammered, and applied stain to a large wood play structure for our goat yard. The structure consists of two sets of stairs and one bridge, which will be used by kids of both the human and goat variety for parallel play in the Lacerte Family Children’s Zoo. Research shows that parallel play helps many children develop empathy. As children use the bridge alongside animal friends, our hope is that it will strengthen their connection to wildlife.

Throughout the day, multiple seed ball making stations were set up at the Westlake campus for volunteers to walk up and form using a mix of native seeds, compost, and clay. The seed balls will be used to restore prairie habitat at local schools. Once placed in these locations, the seeds will germinate and help reestablish native plants species for local wildlife. Fidelity volunteers created 13,200 seed balls today – whew!

Debarking logs for chimps

Debarking logs for the chimp habitat

We would like to sincerely thank all of the generous Fidelity volunteers who paid it forward with sweat equity and hard work in order to make the Zoo, and our community, a better place. Looking at the numbers alone, it’s amazing what a single group of people accomplished in just one day.

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Working for the weekend: Corporations spend morning giving back

Mammal Supervisor Linda King poses with volunteers from Research Now.

Mammal Supervisor Linda King (far left) poses with volunteers from Research Now.

That’s a wrap! We are thrilled to announce the success of our first-ever Corporate Workday event. More than 150 volunteers from KPMG, Kohl’s, Research Now, Holmes Murphy, Deloitte & Touche, and HP-E dedicated their time to improve our Zoo. Our corporate volunteers tackled projects like adding new sod to the tortoise exhibit; building bamboo fences; landscaping primate and carnivore habitats; giving our buildings a fresh coat of paint and more.

IMG_7662 Volunteer cleanup CSWhy would corporate professionals want to come in early, break a sweat, and get dirty on a Friday morning?

“More and more companies are becoming socially responsibility and encourage their employees to volunteer and give back to the community,” said Julie Bates, director of Dallas Zoo’s Volunteer Services. “Companies like to have their employees volunteer in groups because it creates a positive team building experience for participants.”

As a non-profit, volunteers are one of the most important resources we have at the Zoo, contributing more than 40,000 service hours every year. Today was the first time we hosted multiple large groups at a time. Having teams work together allowed us to complete many much-needed projects in a single day.

Our volunteers knocked it out of the park this morning, making us certain we’ll deem Corporate Workday a reoccurring event.

“The ability to work willingly together for the betterment of our Zoo is unmatched. The time our volunteers donate is very important to both the Zoo and the folks involved, making it a true win-win situation,” said Bates.

Learn more about volunteering with us at dallaszoo.com.

IMG_7736 Volunteer cleanup CS

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