For a 10th remarkable year, a day of making life better

As my Lilly colleagues and their communities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Texas and Florida are recovering from devastating hurricanes and earthquakes, it reminds me how important it is to come together to help one another.

Lilly takes our mission to make life better seriously. We have donated money, supplies and medicine in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and other areas affected by the recent disasters.

And Lilly people have long been known for their individual volunteer efforts in communities around the world.

Ten years ago, we began an initiative called the Global Day of Service—one day each year for our people to come together for hundreds of projects in their communities. These projects underscore our commitment to environmental sustainability, education, basic human needs and hunger relief.

More than 24,000 Lilly employees in more than 65 countries will participate today. By the time the sun sets over the Pacific, we will have surpassed 1 million volunteer hours for the 10 years of this initiative. That’s impact to be proud of.

I’m pleased to be in Argentina today, working with an energetic team of Lilly people to sort and pack boxes of food at the Fundación Banco de Alimentos. This organization collects 5 million kilograms of food and other necessities every year for distribution to 675 agencies that serve needy families in and around Buenos Aires. About 80 percent of the recipients are children.

Lilly’s Global Day of Service can be traced back to an idea for a national day of service at our affiliate in Canada in 2006. I worked there at the time, and recall that it really energized the whole organization. The initiative was so successful that Lilly decided to expand it in 2008 to all our locations around the world.

Since then, we’ve not only contributed time and resources—we’ve also gained perspective and understanding. We’ve seen firsthand how much good we can accomplish when we all work together.

Thank you to all my Lilly colleagues for 10 remarkable years of service—making life better around the world. #WeAreLilly