U.S. STEEL Košice (USSK), one of the biggest employers in eastern Slovakia, organised a corporate volunteer event, the sixth such annual event, on May 18 and 19. The steelmakers helped eleven non-profit organisations as part of the U.S. Steel for Košice event. As in previous years, about 500 employees of USSK, its subsidiaries and partner institutions volunteered their assistance.
The two-day event was the culmination of the year-round volunteering activities which the steel company organises. Some of the employees help as instructors within educational programmes for secondary school students while others participate as volunteers in charitable fund-raising efforts and collections, or in organising community life in the region, the company stated in a press release.
“For me, volunteering is a natural part of corporate responsibility to the community,” said USSK’s president, David J. Rintoul. “So I am so proud that each year hundreds of our employees do not hesitate to provide altruistic help in their free time and spread this humanitarian concept among their children and other family members.”
The event started on the morning of Friday, May 18, with the “Steelmakers’ Drop of Blood” call for blood donors. Throughout the Friday and Saturday, USSK employees brought in superfluous summer clothing, towels and bed linen, as well as non-perishable food intended for children and adults resident at various facilities run by the Košice Archdiocesan Charity and at the Oasis of Hope Charity House in Bernátovce. Organisational help for the collection was provided by retired steelmakers from the Autumn of Life civic association.
On Saturday a group of women active within the USSK Women’s Network helped with fence painting and worked in the outdoor and indoor gardens in a foster home.
Elena Petrášková, USSK vice president and chairwoman of the USSK Women’s Network, as well as Mary Rintoul, the wife of USSK’s president, stated jointly that “helping the foster home during the Volunteer Days was a natural continuation of the care we provide during the whole year”. In addition to tutoring children in Slovak, maths, physics and English, they also included children in many sporting, cultural and social corporate events.
Dozens of volunteers assisted several other non-profit organisations including the Rubikon Autistic Centre in Myslava, the Crisis Intervention Centre for children in Čaňa, the Slovak Union for the Blind and Partially Sighted, Košice’s Botanical Gardens, the Haniska Animal Shelter, the city zoo, the Metropol Ski Club and the Kojšovská Hoľa sports resort.
