(NAPSA)—AIl it took wasa little boy’s smile to make UPS employee Sandra Villalobos happy about buckling down to do some hard work. She and other employees of the world’s largest package delivery company spent a week volunteering their time recently to paint, landscape and clean a homefor impoverished children in Chile’s capital Santiago. To mark the culMination of the week, UPS employees held a party for the children, with cake and painted Tshirts. There, a little boy who had followed Villalobos around quietly all week while she worked, gave her his T-shirt with his tiny painted handprint on it. “So you'll always remember me,”he said, and shyly ran away. “I was so moved bythis little boy,” Villalobos said. “It made me realize that with very little effort, all of us can have an incredible impact on those whoreally needit.” Villalobos joined more than 3,500 UPS workers in a week of synchronized volunteer service around the world as part of the company’s second annual Global Volunteer Week. Employees in 35 countries dedicated more than 13,000 hours volunteering for a wide range of activities—from building homes in the Philippines to reading to hospitalized children in Nigeria. Other activities in- cluded working in a soup kitchen in Belgium, planting trees in deforested areas of Mexico and fund-raising for a literacy project in the United Kingdom. ks Sa J Ae A t Wraciae 2 “As a company that works directly in communities all around the world, we have a responsibility to give back through community service,” said David Abney, president of UPS International. “The approaching holidays remind us all of the responsibility we have to give our time to helping others.” The more than 200 nonprofit organizations involved in Global Volunteer Week were researched and recommended by individual employees. Volunteer activities followed the focus of the company’s charitable arm, The UPS Foundation, to end hungerandilliteracy and promote volunteerism. In addition to Global Volunteer Week, more than 30,000 UPS employees participate in the company’s Neighbor-to-Neighbor program, which provides opportunities to volunteer throughout the year. Employees organize food drives, mentor troubled youth and help improve communities throughout the world. To learn more, visit the Web site at www.ups.com.
