What local companies do

An increasing number of Triangle employers are encouraging workers to participate in philanthropic activities, including building houses for Habitat for Humanity and helping at the Food Bank, Ronald McDonald House and other charities.

The efforts provide good public relations for companies and make it easier for employees to volunteer. In many cases, the efforts also become team-building exercises, promoting bonding among co-workers. Many local employers provide paid time off and matching donations.

Here are a few local examples:

Cisco Systems

Members of a sales support team at the technology company's Research Triangle Park campus in December served lunch at the Durham Rescue Mission and packed 415 bags of food that were distributed as part of a Christmas Eve program for the local community. The group also provided an extra carload of toys to help the Christmas Toy Drive because collections had fallen below past years.

Blue Cross

Every year, the Chapel Hill health insurer's summer interns lead a company food drive for the Food Bank. They collect about 20,000 pounds of food. Also, for National Volunteer Week, employees put more than two tons of food into backpacks for needy families.

SAS Institute

A group of employees and their families at the Cary software company participated in an "Elder Elves" effort around the holidays, doing home improvements for five senior families. The workers also purchased gifts for the families and collected money to help them pay utility bills.

Lenovo

Last summer, more than 75 employees and their families at the Morrisville computer maker held a "Geek-a-Thon" with Durham's Kramden Institute to refurbish and rebuild 250 PCs for the children of deployed Fort Bragg soldiers. Lenovo is holding another in Greensboro in the fall.

Progress Energy

Fifteen employees from the Raleigh utility's legal department went bowling with children from the Boys & Girls Club of Wake County. And a group of employees from the Harris Nuclear Plant cleaned out the basement and two outbuildings of a battered women's shelter in Chatham County, restoring these previously unusable spaces to the shelter.

Kilpatrick Stockton

Last weekend, 10 lawyers and other staff with the law firm's Raleigh office provided free legal advice for residents of Summit House, an alternative to incarceration for female felons of nonviolent crimes who are pregnant or who have young children. The law firm employees also helped with repairs and decorations at the house and took the children on a field trip to Marbles Museum in Raleigh.