The month of October is Microsoft’s Annual GIVE campaign; employees are encouraged to give time, talent, money, and most of all, hope. In New York we hosted weekly events over the course of the month to encourage campaign participation.
Our first event was a bake sale benefitting St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital, all baked goods were sold. Virtual bowling was our week two event and we are so appreciative to all of those employees who participated.
During week three we had two exciting events. The first one, employees volunteered their time to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for those in need. This was in support of the organization called One Sandwich at a Time. Our sandwiches were destined to reach the Bowery Mission in lower Manhattan.
Our second event for week three was a Rock Paper Scissors tournament. In order to participate each employee had to commit to donating a specified dollar amount to the charity which was to be selected by the overall tournament winner. It was a fast and fun event.
Last, but certainly not least, was our annual in-office service event with City Year New York. This year our employees volunteered their time to create plant kits and STEM packets, featuring Minecraft, for students at JHS 218K as part of Microsoft’s STEM initiative for in-school service.
The STEM packets contain math and science worksheets, comic templates and a section for the volunteer to write a letter to a student currently attending the City Year after school program. A portion of the science worksheets will be dedicated to the steps of the scientific method from hypothesis to analysis and conclusion.
The math sheets were tailored to middle school, which will include algebra, PEMDAS, and fractions. To spark their creativity and connect STEM to arts, students will be able look
to draw their own comic. Volunteers were encouraged to begin drawing a STEM-related comic, and have the students finish the comic in the last box. The comic may be related to the contents of the personal letter that the volunteers will wrote to the student.
The plant kits are a real-life science project to give students the opportunity to learn more about plant-based biology, provide practical skills on how to properly grow and care for a plant, and beautify the classroom spaces at JHS 218. Students will be able to get hands-on experience on planting the seed, understand how it grows in different types of light, temperature and amount of water given x amount of days as they go through the scientific method.
As part of our overall GIVE campaign, a huge thank you to all of our employees for their donations and for volunteering their time to bring life-changing opportunities to people in need in our backyard and around the globe.
