Thousands of Marriott employees are building affordable homes; feeding the hungry; cleaning up beaches and planting trees in parks; visiting the elderly and more, during the company’s annual day of service—Spirit To Serve Our Communities Day. The company’s Spirit To Serve Our Communities program is an ongoing commitment to benefit local neighborhoods and communities. It enlists the involvement of 143,000 employees in 67 countries and territories around the world.

On this day of service, and in honor of Armed Forces Day, 200 Marriott Headquarters employees are joining Chairman and CEO Bill Marriott, a United States Navy veteran, and David Marriott, senior vice president of global sales, at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C. They will clean and polish woodwork, plant flowers, and visit, play games, and bowl with hundreds of veterans—350 of which were displaced from Gulfport, Miss. as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Other Marriott employees are assembling 10,000 care packages in Fort Belvoir, Va. for the United Service Organization (USO) and refurbishing and painting lockers in the nation’s capital at Shaw Junior High School.

“It is engrained in our culture to serve and support the communities where we do business,” said Chairman J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr. “Today is an example of our ongoing commitment. More importantly, it’s an opportunity for our employees to volunteer with organizations that are making a difference every day.”

Employees in Chicago and Boston are participating in similar events. On June 2nd, Marriott employees of Chicago are donating time to paint, landscape and upgrade the Park Ridge Youth Campus which houses at-risk youth from the inner city. In Boston, Marriott employees are planning to spruce up, clean, prep, paint and barbecue for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Woburn, Lynn, Newton, Middlesex County and South Boston this August.

In Hawaii, on May 20th, 300 associates from Marriott hotels will walk to raise money for community agencies. Over 10,000 walkers are scheduled to participate in the four-day event. Additionally, the hotels are sponsoring a build-a-thon on June 10th for Habitat for Humanity International, a non-profit organization whose goal is to provide safe, affordable housing.

Other great examples of Spirit To Serve Our Communities activities being held outside of the U.S. include those in Australia and Russia. Marriott employees in Australia are cooking for Second Bite, an organization that collects unused or prepared food from restaurant and hotels for welfare agencies that feed the hungry. In Russia, Marriott associates are donating time to collect toys, plan a party and renovate the local orphanage during Children’s Day in June.
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