It Just Keeps Getting Better: Reflections on our Second Annual Week of Caring
By Marilee Grant, Director, Community Engagement
Working in healthcare means we have the privilege to help improve the lives and well-being of others, and that our contributions can extend beyond providing life saving devices. Our caring value is a driving force behind so much of what we do, encompassing patients, our customers, and employees. In Community Engagement, this means we focus our efforts on health, education and improving the communities where our employees live and work. During the Boston Scientific second annual Week of Caring, employees from over 15 countries around the world demonstrated the positive difference we can make together.
Our contributions varied, including book drives for hospital libraries in Greece, to a fitness challenge in Galway, Ireland. In Singapore, we launched fundraising and supply drives for disaster relief. In Latin America, employees mobilized to commemorate World Environment Day with tree plantings and other green initiatives. In Malaysia, we hosted a blood donation campaign and collaborated with local charities to expand their outreach. And closer to headquarters in Massachusetts, we sponsored volunteer awareness events and deployed teams to staff 28 community projects in the Boston area.
Leading our global community engagement, I’ve had the opportunity to create programs, resources, and campaigns that help empower our employees to make contributions to organizations and causes they are passionate about. In nearly 30 years of working at Boston Scientific, I’ve never been prouder of how our teams embrace so many significant ways of caring.
The idea for the Week of Caring grew out of tradition to hold a yearly volunteer week at Boston Scientific. Our caring value encompasses more than volunteering and extends to caring for patients, customers and each other, so we decided to broaden our focus to encourage employees to pursue activities they’re energized about, whether it’s promoting access to STEM education, starting a local nonprofit focused on addressing health disparities or organizing missions to help people in developing countries. This means that we have the great fortune to do important work every day at our company and operate in a way that integrates our priorities personally and professionally. To me, the best part about this is hearing stories about colleagues who are stepping up to support and advocate for each other, including our global Employee Resource Group leads, community champions and the teams that rally around others when natural disasters strike.
Our collective efforts strengthen our company as well as our local communities. The stories our employees share about the Week of Caring demonstrate that while Boston Scientific is expansive in terms of our reach, we share a commitment to transforming lives and living our values. And the best part is, the week never really stops. Many teams and employees continue to support causes and campaigns all year long. For example, our STEM outreach events are focused on inspiring young children to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. Year round, dedicated employee volunteers work with K-12 children to show that STEM careers can be fun, exciting, and challenging. Last year over 200 of these events were supported by over 1,700 employees across the globe. As part of these efforts, we recently launched a STEM resource library so that all Boston Scientific employees can inspire the future generation of STEM professionals.
Our values are as much a part of our company’s culture as they are a reflection of the true nature of people working here. From the community engagement team to all our coworkers: A big thanks for a Week of Caring that showed our values in action worldwide. You make me proud to be a part of Boston Scientific.
