On Saturday, April 12, an enthusiastic group of Travelocity office members headed to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to give its much-loved McCarren Park a spring cleaning. Volunteers spent the morning seeding the lawn, picking up trash, and repainting fences, renewing an outdoor haven in a quickly developing Brooklyn neighborhood and giving spring-crazed Brooklynites a fresh place to enjoy the warm weather. We worked alongside hundreds of volunteers from other companies and organizations, a busy farmer’s market, and local residents out for a Saturday morning walk (some of whom actually stopped to thank us…and they say New Yorkers aren’t friendly). Though the incoming storm clouds cut our day short, we were able to cover ample ground and leave the park looking refreshed and ready for the summer season. Thanks to all those volunteers who gave up a Saturday morning (and an early one at that!) to contribute to this effort and give back to the community. It was great to come together and lend our team energy to such a worthwhile cause!

The CIO Research Group held their Give Time Together project at Texas Discovery Gardens on April 23^rd. A dozen members of the Research Group were assigned to different tasks.

Rajeev Bellubbi, Sergey Shebalov and John Blankenbaker shoveled mulch into wheel barrels which Ben Vinod and Hai Jiang hauled to different locations on the property. Hai Jiang and Doak Jones spread the mulch in the rose garden and other beds. Nancy Tastle and Jill Johnson, raked and swept leaves along walk ways which Ross Darrow picked up and hauled to a compost bed. Jeff Johnson cut away weeds and unwanted plants in multiple flower beds. Richard Ratliff figured out how to make the 20 year old PC that drives their engraving machine work by following the directions in the manual that came with the engraving machine. This is used to make signs for plants (the ones that stick out of the ground and say “daffodil — (insert full Latin species name here)”. This effort saved the Gardens $5,000 — a big kudos to Richard.

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More than forty volunteers from across AS, CTO, PSD and the Indian Employee Resource Group (IERG). gave back to the Southlake Public Library on Friday, April 25. The library is the provider for our Sabre Virtual Library, delivering books, movies and other media directly to employees here at our Southlake corporate campus. The team re-stacked books, de-commissioned books, processed books into the system (stamping, RFID tagging, labeling), and adjusted, moved and cleaned shelving. City Librarian and Deputy Director of Community Services in Southlake, Kerry McGeath was appreciative of this group’s contributions — “…our staff really enjoyed working with all of you, and the work you all were able to accomplish was a huge boost for us.”

On Friday April 25, the Ecuador team Gave Time Together with Fundacion LEXIS who works in a project - well know around the world - Hospital Classrooms.These classrooms emerged within the hospital with a main objective:
Providing school support to children that due to serious illness, must be hospitalized for long periods of time.

This support is to prevent the marginalization of the educational process of school-age students placed in hospitals, so when the medical treatment is over, they can go back to their previous life.
In many cases, when we have suffered a serious blow in life, it is when we begin to question how we can give help to others, this is how members of Fundacion LEXIS got together.

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Susan Standiford’s soon to be re-named Merchandising Team volunteered at the Texas Discovery Gardens in Fair Park on April 24. We cleared, pulled, chopped, carted off and cleaned up two large beds in the butterfly gardens. We were able to accomplish in several hours what would have taken days for their in-house crews to do.

We came armed with gardening gloves and shears, and with instructions from Randy Johnson, their horticulturalist, got to work.

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40 volunteers from the Travelocity Beyond Shopping team spent the morning of April 29^th at Rocky Top Therapy Center in Keller, Texas. Rocky Top was established as a therapeutic riding center that provides comprehensive rehabilitation for physically, mentally or emotionally challenged individuals in the North Central Texas area. The volunteers scraped and painted picnic tables/clubhouse wheelchair ramps, worked in the pastures (aka shoveled manure), cleaned and re-carpeted children’s therapy room, mucked the arena, and weatherproofed the obstacle course/buildings/covered seating. Rocky Top is a beautiful and rewarding facility which relies solely on volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, please check out the website: http://www.rockytoptherapy.org/.

In September 25^th  2007, 22 families that lived in the Retamani II area were affected by a landslide that destroyed their houses.  For their own safety, they were evacuated and relocated in a small soccer field. 

Since that day, and for seven months now, they live in tents and handmade houses built with aluminum and almost outdoors, with no water and limited electricity. Read more »

The Red Cross Home for the Disabled was chosen again this year as the charity organisation for GTT. The first time we went there was in 2006 when GTT first started. The reason for choosing it was simple…they truly needed our help.

Since it was the second time for me, I wasn’t filled with anticipation as much as I did the first time. This time I knew exactly what I would see and I was very prepared to be a friend to the residents again. I was excited that I was going to see and talk to them again, and do whatever little bit that I can to make their lives better. And I knew that there were others who felt exactly as I did.

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The invitation went out and the volunteers flooded in - Folks from GetThere Product Marketing and Engineering ready to give a helping hand . . . and diapers, baby wipes, crib sheets, toys, and art supplies . . . giving time together at the LIGHT (Living in Good Heath Treatment) Program with Volunteers of American Fort Worth.  The LIGHT Program provides housing, a recovery program, training and support for homeless women with children recovering from substance abuse. 

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I was happy to have the opportunity to volunteer for the Visiting Nurses Association of Texas (VNA) Meals on Wheels Program, it’s something I’ve long wanted to do.  But it was even more meaningful to volunteer with my customers and I’m truly grateful to have that kind of connectedness with them.  With less than a week to plan, we all pulled together and formed a group of 13 with 5 Sabre Travel Network agency customers, 1 dear friend and 7 Sabre employees (one of which - our CEO Sam Gilliland). With the help of our customers, we had enough volunteers to make the event a “go” since a minimum of 12 people are required. The day was a great customer bonding experience for all of us, and I think I can honestly say we are …. Better Together ~ Awwwwwh!

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