Our dream is for everyone to be able to sit down at the Christmas table and have a warm meal. For this reason, our team in Poland has once again joined forces with the Polish Red Cross (PCK), which maintains its annual tradition of providing special pre-Christmas support to families in need. Thanks to our combined effort, as many as 6,000 families will get food assistance, while another 36,000 will receive packages containing hygiene products.
National cooperation with the Polish Red Cross
“Hunger and malnutrition are global problems, which are unfortunately beginning to affect more and more people in Poland. As we feel the need to respond to this challenge, we have chosen food aid as the main theme of this year’s Christmas campaign,” says Barbara Krystosiak, CEE Community Relations Manager at Amazon. “In order to make sure that our assistance is effective, we cooperate with one of the largest and most experienced charities in the country – the Polish Red Cross.”
As part of the joint campaign with the Polish Red Cross, Amazon employees from our Wrocław fulfillment center intend to pack 30,000 kilograms of food products (including oats, rice, pasta, candy, dried fruit and nuts, coffee and tea) by the end of December. The packages will also contain toys and games for children.
As many as 6,000 packages will be delivered to the regional branches of PCK in all provinces, which will result in more than 24,000 people receiving food assistance for Christmas.
In addition, the volunteers at the Amazon aid hub in Sosnowiec have prepared 36,000 parcels filled with hygiene products for the Polish Red Cross to distribute.
“We are very pleased that together with Amazon, we have been able to help so many people. We owe this success to the commitment of the employees and their overwhelming support, both financial and in‑kind,” says Anna Modzelewska of the PCK Lower Silesian Regional Branch. “The Christmas food assistance, worth PLN 900,000, represents only a part of the initiatives we have been able to launch in cooperation with Amazon. For example, we also provide school starter kits to children and carry out the humanitarian aid campaign for Ukrainian refugees.”
We help locally
At Amazon, we actively help local communities. By means of the Amazon Pomagamy (Amazon Gives) program, we support local NGOs in all regions where our logistics centers have been established and where our employees live.
In addition to the financial aid of more than PLN 620,000 to the third sector, Amazon has also made in-kind donations to local NGOs during this Christmas campaign. Toys, games, candy and hygiene products, worth at least PLN 628,000, have been delivered to organizations such as the Weź Pomóż (Let’s Help) Foundation, the Society of the Friends of Children in Legnica, the Wrocław Hospice for Children Foundation, Early Birds and HIAS.
“We would like to thank Amazon for its year-round help, kindness, and voluntary service, as well as in-kind and financial assistance. Thank you for your big heart,” says Jan Piontek of the Weź Pomóż Foundation.
We help individually
The involvement of our employees in community projects allows us to have a real impact on improving the quality of life of people in the regions where we operate. This year, Amazonians in Poland spent nearly 2,000 days on employee volunteering.
This December, they have engaged in numerous projects, from packing of parcels for those in need and reading Christmas stories to children, to helping organize community Christmas Eve suppers for local residents.
“This year, I took part in employee volunteering at the Weź Pomóż Foundation in Wrocław – I prepared and sorted packages for people in need. I am also working on the Christmas campaign conducted in cooperation with the Polish Red Cross,” says Nataliia Kovshova, from our Wrocław fulfillment center. “I am very glad that at Amazon we not only care about local communities, but also help on a national level.”
We promote education
Another initiative in Amazon’s Christmas campaign was to donate new equipment and books to every “Kindloteka” – a multimedia space in schools, libraries, and cultural centers that promotes the acquisition of digital skills and reading. The institutions have been provided with 7,000 Polish‑Ukrainian books, 580 Kindle readers, 500 tablets, and 180 robots. Some of the sites were visited by Amazon’s volunteers personally.
While such smaller and larger acts of charity give us all tremendous satisfaction, we are, above all, happy that we can contribute to the improvement of the lives of those in need.
