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LITTLEDROPS FEATURED IN REDMOND REPORTER
Community connections:
Non-profit agency fair showcases volunteer spirit
By
MARY STEVENS DECKER
Redmond Reporter Reporter
Oct 29 2009, 3:59 PM
Redmond Reporter Reporter
Oct 29 2009, 3:59 PM
To some in Redmond, Microsoft
Corp. may seem like a monolith. But there is no denying the
company’s legendary philanthropy and the individual
contributions of thousands of its generous employees.
On Microsoft’s Redmond campus
this week, a non-profit agency fair, in conjunction with the
company’s annual giving campaign, allowed workers to meet with
representatives of more than 50 organizations addressing local,
national and global needs. Each had some personal tie to a
Microsoft employee, such as a life-changing event, a place where
an employee actively volunteers or even some non-profits founded
by Microsoft workers.
For example, Charles Duze, a
software engineer at Microsoft, started the LittleDrops Orphange
Fund (www.LittleDropsOrphangeFund.org)
that supports 26 orphanages in six African countries and has
touched the lives of 2,000 children.
The name LittleDrops,
Duze explained, comes from the fact that “Little drops
(of help) add up — you don’t have to start with a
million dollars.” The organization helps impoverished
children with immediate needs such as food and water,
but also long-term needs.
“We let kids express who
they want to be when they grow up,” said Duze. “Most
wanted to be a doctor, a pilot or an engineer but most
end up as a seamstress or apprentice. Where do their
dreams go? I didn’t want it to be like the commercial
with the Trix Rabbit — ‘Silly rabbit, dreams
aren’t for orphans!’ We help them to say, ‘I’m gonna work hard,
I’m not going to cheat, I’m going to do my homework.’ We help
them go to college because they deserve to be there, or if not
college, a trade school. We prepare them in high school with
tutoring, so they can succeed.”
Federal Way-based World
Vision brought its Experience: AIDS exhibit to
Microsoft’s non-profit fair. The interactive,
walk-through display features true stories of innocent
children who were forced to become soldiers or brides
and their struggles to survive amidst the devastation of
HIV and AIDS.
Microsoft employees who
visited the exhibit could buy caregiver kits for World
Vision volunteers in Africa, Asia and Latin America —
and include hand-written notes of support.
Akhtar Badshah,
Microsoft’s senior director for global community
affairs, said the non-profit fair was especially
relevant this year because of the global recession and a
skyrocketing need for human services right here in
Redmond. Through organizations such as the United Way,
Microsoft employees help people in need “in their own
back yard,” as well as across the globe, he noted.
The company provides
matching dollars for employee gifts to charities and
also pays $17 an hour, for a minimum of 10 hours of
volunteer service, for work done on behalf of “PTAs,
youth sports clubs, helping elderly people with their
tax forms, painting walls in a school or picking up
garbage.”
