On Tuesday 25^th September, 6 Sabre Pacific employees and 1 Sabre Holdings employee, Geoff, Elvina, Kelly, Peter, Sushil, Tanya and Dayl volunteered at the Cancer council office in Sydney. Our Task had been pre-assigned, we were to undress Dougal Bear and redress him as Dougalette in preparation of Pink Ribbon Day.
On Arrival we were shown to the volunteer room which was filled with cancer council merchandise. We received our instructions, remove the yellow t-shirts from the bears and replace with a pink t-shirt, sound easy sure until you see the size of the bear!

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At lunch time on Wednesday 19^th September , 4 nervous volunteers , Kristy-Jai, Winnie, Karen and Tanya, along with 1 “yeah been there done that know what to expect” volunteer, Daniel, set off to the Red Cross Blood Donor Centre.

Proudly wearing our Sabre Holding t-shirts we entered the donor centre and were warmly welcomed on arrival. We then completed the necessary forms to ensure we qualified and for the virgin blood donors among us we were then provided with a sticker to wear indicating we were first timers and of course we wore this proudly.

After this we each went off for a short interview and to check our blood pressure and iron levels. One of us only just scraped in being just one point above the minimum blood pressure cut off point…phew!

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We visited Perpetual Socorro Asylum for Elderly, where we today started off with Karen Moreno and my Mom, Nelly de Rodriguez, where they received us very happily.

We shared a snack, candies, and articles of personal hygiene with these elderly people that live in this charitable institution, since they do not have economic resources, nor family. At the end, they were very thankful to us, so that one of them sang to us and another lady recited a poem. It was really a stirring moment that they filled us with love and commited us to continue making these social labor.

When we were saying good bye to them, they asked us when it will be the next day that we will back to visit them.They are people who demonstrate that what they need is company and it was the pretty thing of this experience to share, to talk and to embrace them since they need affection. We saw the joy of them with simple things as to receive a hygienic paper and soap. This makes us value our lives and to thank God for giving us the oportunity to share with them.

On the mornings of the 3rd and 4th of October 5 Travelocity employees (forever known as the Conservation 5) joined the Department of Conservation in an effort to regenerate bushland in Sydney Harbour’s National Park at Middle Head.

Bushland conservation couldn’t have been performed on two more beautiful days. Shining sun and fabulous harbour scenery saw team role up their sleeves, slap on sunscreen and slip on hats to go about ridding areas of bushland of their foreign invaders. Privet, asparagus weed and lantana (all introduced species) play a huge role in choking our native plant life and quickly taking over vast areas.

With the harbour as our backdrop, Kartik “Napalm” Rao and Mike “Lawnmower”

Coxon, became privet tree removal experts. Simeon “Chainsaw” Malchev proved equally as effective whilst Bo and Tina concentrated on the more delicate operation of digging out asparagus weed and lantana. Read more »

On the 17th of September, the Sydney Sabre Finance team and Tas from Zuji Australia, made the trek out to the Salvation Army St Peters Warehouse to spend an afternoon volunteering.

They learnt about the Salvation Army’s operations in Australia and abroad, and how our contributions would help the charity. After the induction they briefly toured the warehouse and then spent the afternoo pricing garmets which had been sorted by Salvo’s staff.

They had a great time and made some special friends…… especially Wally!

http://www.salvos.org.au/

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On October 4^th the Sabre Colombia team and the CAIPORA group visit the foundation in “Bella Flor” Community where we gave them the gifts we bought for them, in total 127 kids attended the activity.  The coordinator of the foundation showed us the community and explained to us the work that they have done with the children for the last 7 years. 

The children and the Sabre employees joined together to watch a presentation of the group CAIPORA and shared an afternoon of recreation.  Afterwards we gave the children a snack and their presents, along with the sports items we also gave clothing and paintings for the artist shop that they have.    

See the video http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=dX3nCNOaMYo

The employees of Sabre Colombia organized a ruffle for one gift certificate for a dinner at a local restaurant.  Each employee had to sale 4 tickets that were sold for $2.5 USD each one. We collected a total of  USD 350,  The money we collected was used to buy sports items (balls, nets, etc…) for the kids of “Bella Flor” community.  

Santiago Gallegos from the CSC was the winner of the gift certificate and received it from Antonio Diaz general manager for Colombia. The ruffle was done on October the 3^rd. 

On September 29th, we had a second opportunity to paint the future for our kids at School 155. 100 litres of paint, 42 brushes, and 50 rollers were ready to accomplish our second challenge at the Give Time Gogether campaign.

With sleepy faces on a Saturday morning, the enthusiasm of making a big change motivated our coworkers to take the bus to School 155. And they did it again!

From 9am to 2pm we painted 4 classrooms and the outside of the building in white and dark blue. Everyone had assigned one classroom or part of a wall, and it was wonderful as our employees felt part of that school inmediately. They took the ownership of the room, and used all their efforts to paint and clean it for those children.

 We can imagine Monday morning, when a regular week starts for students at School 155.  But it wasn’t a normal weekend, because on Saturday 29th 42 Sabre employees painted the school with the bright colors of hope.

 Congratulations to everyone! As always you gave your best and that’s the biggest present that we can expect.

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