VF Corporation's Response to COVID-19

VF Corporation

VF Corporation Helps Overcome COVID-19

VF Corporation, one of the world’s largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies, has taken multiple actions worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. From supplying donations for COVID-19 relief efforts to ensuring the safety of healthcare workers and their own stakeholders, VF Corporation has been successfully navigating  the challenges brought on by the pandemic.

VF Donations & COVID-19 Relief Efforts

VF Corporation, the VF Foundation and the VF family of brands donated more than $10.3 million in funds, products and services worldwide to assist with urgent medical needs and offer help to those struggling in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over $7 million has been contributed in cash donations through a number of purpose-led initiatives such as the Vans’ “Foot The Bill” small business support, the VF Foundation COVID-19 Relief Efforts, The North Face® Explore Fund , Eagle Creek Adventure Travel Conservation Fund, Altra du Souffle and Banco Alimentare , and to the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) in support of small outdoor businesses. To read more about the donation towards Outdoor Industry Association, visit this article.

VF Corporation has also contributed over $3.2 million in product donations to frontline workers of the Coronavirus pandemic. These donations include over 150,000 products such as The North Face®, Vans®, and Timberland® products.

Aside from assisting the frontline heroes of the Coronavirus pandemic, VF Corporation has the production capacity to produce up to 3.4 million Dickies® isolation gowns, while other PPE donations include 250,000 Vans® canvas face masks, 15,000 surgical masks and 1,600 face masks. To learn more about VF’s COVID-19 relief efforts, click here.

In addition to PPE, the company has also provided factory and worker support by contributing $200,000 to Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and Cambodia for COVID-19 relief efforts. These countries, being some of the most vulnerable in VF’s supply chain, are seeing widespread layoffs with little system of national support.

On top of unprecedented job losses and a sharp increase in confirmed cases of coronavirus, many people who live in Bangladesh already struggle with situations of poverty and limited health-care resources. The VF Foundation donation of $100,000 to garment workers in Bangladesh is providing a safety net for thousands of families affected by factory shutdowns precipitated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. The VF Foundation worked with its disaster grantmaking partner GlobalGiving and BRAC to ensure the donation was directed to families who needed it the most.  As a result, more than 5,500 households received a cash stipend to buy food and other necessities for two weeks. To read more about VF’s support of Bangladesh, click here. 

VF Corporation’s support doesn’t stop there. The corporation has also ensured enterprise and associate support by reducing CEO salary in half, reducing VF’s Executive Leadership Team salaries by 25% and increasing salary support for North American retail associates by 100%. They have also increased pay and benefits for U.S and Canada distribution center associates.

Support for Garment Workers

Not only has VF Corporation implemented safety protocol in their production facilities to protect their associates, but they have also joined the International Labor Organization, International Organization of Employers, International Trade Union Conference, and others in supporting the rights of garment workers throughout COVID-19.

As outlined in the Call to Action, VF:

1.     Calls on governments and financial institutions to accelerate access to credit, unemployment benefits and income-support, no or low-interest short-term loans, tax abatement, duty deferral, fiscal stimulus, and other forms of support.

2.     Recognizes the support that is needed to enhance social protection schemes and supports action to preserve jobs through different means, tax packages or social security charges and temporary unemployment programs.  VF Corporation strongly supports access to these funds so that suppliers can preserve their activities. This is vital to prioritizing jobs and incomes of workers immediately and throughout the extended period of the crisis. 

3.     Requires such funds shall be used to enable manufacturers to ensure business continuity including payment of wages for all workers regardless of employment contract, in accordance with national laws, collective agreements, and any prevailing income-support and job-retention schemes to deal with the crisis. 

4.     Promotes respect for the ILO core labor standards, as well as safe and healthy workplaces

5.     Supports the development of social protection floors and to extending social protection for workers and employers in the garment industry, consistent with ILO recommendation 202, with a view to establishing over time the responsibilities of all parties to contribute for sustainable systems.

For more information on their commitment to support garment workers, please click here.

Support for Healthcare Workers

As the Coronavirus pandemic circulates worldwide and hits more communities, a record number of healthcare workers are experiencing distress, anxiety and depression. In order to combat these mental health struggles, the VF Foundation launched a $50,000 challenge match to send healthcare heroes on outdoor adventures.

The donation is to support “HERO RECHARGE”, an outdoor adventure program designed specifically for healthcare workers and first responders on the front lines of the pandemic.  Since the program first launched in late April,  it has received more than 10,000 inquiries from healthcare workers and first responders nationwide.

Healthcare workers that are on the frontlines of the pandemic will get to recharge through adventurous experiences provided by this program. “HERO RECHARGE” includes exhilarating challenges ranging from multiday to single day adventures such as rock climbing, kayaking, surfing, and mountain biking.

 “Our goal is to address this trauma through unforgettable outdoor adventures that will nurture supportive peer relationships and give these heroes the respite and renewal they deserve.” states Ryan O’Donoghue, Executive Director of First Descents.

To learn more about the program, click here. To see how you can help, click here.

VF Corporation  is actively working to help overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure the safety of healthcare workers as well as their own associates. To learn more about the company and further COVID-19 endeavors, please click here.

Novozymes’ Response to COVID-19

Novozymes

When the novel coronavirus started spreading globally, Novozymes immediately set out to develop a comprehensive plan to deal with the difficult situation. Ensuring the safety of the company’s workforce was at the forefront of this response strategy and, as an example, Novozymes moved very early to protect its employees by enabling them to work from home. The company also quickly limited business travel and started offering useful tools and resources to help employees deal with the fear and loneliness sparked by the unprecedented situation.

“COVID-19 is an awful experience for everyone, but that said it is also an opportunity to think outside the box and discover how we can work together in new ways – and ultimately better reach societies with the technology they need,” says Jeppe Glahn, Novozymes’ Vice President of Global Communications & Brand.

Already in January, the company activated its Global Crisis Response Team to work dedicatedly with the consequences of the pandemic. As the COVID-19 crisis continued to develop, Novozymes also formed Regional Crisis Response Teams in order to more effectively tackle the effects of the ever-evolving situation.

Under overall guidance from the global team, the Regional Crisis Response Teams handled the pandemic according to local circumstances and dynamics. This decentralized, more hands-off-like approach proved to be highly effective.

Novozymes also worked hard to explore ways to help others, including healthcare workers and communities in need. For example, as many health centers in Denmark faced test plate shortages, Novozymes provided guidance, from its biotech toolbox, to local hospitals on how to adequately wash and reuse test plates for COVID-19 – instead of throwing these away after a single use.

Novozymes is also helping communities through the production of hand sanitizer – which is in short supply in many countries around the world. The company is involved in the production of ethanol, an alcohol key to hand sanitizer, and is helping procure this ingredient for producers.

“As COVID-19 continues to unfold, Novozymes is not focused on implementing necessarily the easiest solutions but, rather, implementing more sustainable change in the organization that we know will not have a long-term negative imprint,” says Jeppe Glahn. “As so many other organizations, we are very likely to move to much more agility, including by working from home. However, we want to do this right and ensure we have thought through how such a fundamental shift affects employees’ well-being, while ensuring that everyone still has a strong feeling of belonging to a very purpose-driven organization.”

To learn more about how Novozymes is responding to the COVID-19 crisis, click here.

Philip Morris International is dedicated to contributing to the fight against COVID-19

Philip Morris International

Philip Morris International (PMI) continues to contribute to the global response to coronavirus with ongoing and planned initiatives in more than 60 countries that include monetary and in-kind donations, as well as volunteer work to support national and local efforts to combat the virus and help those most affected by it.

PMI has supplied protective equipment to trade partners, supported care communities, secured support to purchase items that are essential to the fight against COVID-19, and provided financial support to institutions and NGOs working to end the crisis.  “Our company is resilient and strong, and that is a testament to our more than 73,000 employees worldwide,” said Charles Bendotti, Senior Vice President of People & Culture “I believe we will emerge even stronger from this global crisis, having pulled together and worked together to see each other through.”

Additionally, PMI has established guiding principles that support employees by covering three key areas:

Employment stability:

• The company will not terminate the employment of any PMI employee during this crisis period, unless for cause, and restructuring plans have been put on hold.

Financial stability:

• PMI will continue to provide regular compensation to all PMI employees, regardless of their ability to fully perform their professional duties during this period.

Special recognition awards:

• PMI employees who need to be physically present at their usual work locations (in factories, in warehouses, in the field, or in offices), as permitted by local regulations, will be given special recognition awards during this crisis period. The company will continue taking all necessary safety measures to protect those employees who are working at such locations.

To date, PMI has pledged in excess of USD 24 million to support actions against the pandemic. Its support will continue to grow as  the company works to meet the evolving needs of the communities in which it operates.

Bayer Contributes Medicine, Supplies, Knowledge and Financial Support to the Global Fight against COVID-19

Bayer

The coronavirus presents the world with major challenges. Bayer is active in the areas of health and nutrition and has been working to provide substantial help in overcoming the crisis with their products and expertise.

Bayer has made significant contributions to  the fight against COVID-19 by donating medicines, medical supplies, knowledge and financial aid. “Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary levels of support, and we will deliver,” said Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer AG. “You can count on each and every one of us at Bayer. Guided by our purpose – Science for a better life – we will do whatever it takes to help serve the world’s health and nutritional needs both during and after this crisis.”

Bayer is focusing on three areas to assist in during this crisis:

Employees’ health:

• The safety and health of Bayer’s employees is the top priority. As the coronavirus presents a serious risk,  the company has taken the necessary steps to limit its spread.

• Bayer is frequently updating  its employees on the latest developments.  The enterprise has posted advice on what everyone can do to prevent the virus from spreading on their intranet.

• All employees can work from home until further notice, if their duties allow.

• Bayer will assess on a case-by-case basis whether Bayer employed healthcare professionals who wish to volunteer in their communities to help fight the pandemic can temporarily be released from work while the company continues to pay their wages.

Maintaining the supply of their products:

• Bayer is working at full steam to ensure business continuity so that it can provide hospitals, doctors, patients, consumers and farmers with the products they urgently need at this time.

• Bayer has comprehensive emergency response plans prepared for all its sites which will be implemented as necessary to ensure that their facilities continue to operate safely and effectively.

Bayer is providing governments, health authorities and municipalities with urgently needed medicines, medical supplies, expertise and financial assistance:

• Bayer is working with other pharmaceutical companies, institutions and universities to search for a new active substance to treat COVID-19.  Bayer is providing access to its large substance library and conducting screening work to find a potential active ingredient as part of the COVID-19 Therapeutic Accelerator Initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is contributing to the search for an active substance to treat COVID-19 as part of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).

• Bayer has made several large donations to hardest hit countries.  Bayer has donated medicines and additional financial aid worth a total of approximately  1.5 million euros to support the population affected by the outbreak of the novel virus in China.  The company has donated 1 million euros to an aid fund in Italy that will be used to buy urgently needed supplies for intensive care units and protective equipment. Additionally, Bayer has donated €800,000 to the national health system in Spain for the purchase of  needed medical equipment and hospital beds, and donated 2 million euros to help fight Covid-19 in France and Brazil.

• In response to new data from initial research conducted in China that shows potential for the use of Resochin in treating  COVID-19 patients, Bayer has donated 3 million tablets of the drug to the U.S. Government, 1 million chloroquine tablets to Italy, and 8 million tablets of chloroquine to the German government.

• Bayer Consumer Health is donating 1 million Health and Wellness Products including, Aleve, Alka-Seltzer Plus, Bayer Aspirin, Claritin, Flintstones and One-A-Day Vitamins to support the health of underserved communities. Bayer will work with non-profit organizations, including Direct Relief and Feeding America, who have direct interactions with Americans who have limited access or financial means to secure health and wellness products during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

• Bayer employees in Missouri are making face masks with 3D printers to be donated to local hospitals.

• Bayer is in the process of offering PCR testing hardware from its inventory to hospitals and is also planning to repurpose some of their R&D sites to offer high volumes of PCR testing in its laboratories.

• Bayer has also started to produce disinfectant agents at large scale in select R&D sites.

For more information about Bayer’s initiatives please find their Corona Ticker here.

Chevron Develops Innovative Methods to Protect its Customers and Support Communities in NeeD

Chevron

Chevron has mobilized local, regional and global teams to address the pandemic’s impact on the company and to proactively address potential risks. Chevron’s priority is keeping its workers, families, communities and customers safe. The company has also made a series of financial contributions to aid the response to this global crisis. Chevron is working closely with governments and healthcare experts around the world to ensure the company takes appropriate action to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Chevron is committed to striking a balance between social distancing and supplying the world with the energy that is essential to slowing the growth of the disease.

Protecting Customers

At Chevron-operated gas stations, the company has been following the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and the guidance of international and local health authorities. It has increased the frequency of cleaning at its stations, provided gloves to cashiers and encouraged employees to take advantage of its paid sick leave program to stay at home if they have cold or flu-like symptoms or a fever. All frequently touched surfaces, like countertops, door handles, dispensers, buttons on equipment and self-service food equipment are cleaned approximately every 30 minutes. The company has also recommended that Chevron and Texaco retailers who operate their own stations follow safety guidelines issued by the CDC and World Health Organization.

Chevron is committed to providing customers with quality fuels and products in a safe environment and remains well-positioned to do so.

Supporting Communities in Need

Chevron believes in the power of humanity to solve any challenge. Together with its global partners, Chevron is enacting a series of social investments and support initiatives to help communities and nonprofits address the COVID-19 public health crisis.

In the U.S. alone, the company has donated more than $5 million to local relief efforts in several states including $2 million to match 2:1 employee contributions to U.S.-based nonprofits. Outside the U.S., Chevron is working with global partners on a variety of initiatives, such as helping to fund emergency services in remote parts of Western Australia and providing medical supplies to hospitals in Thailand. To date, Chevron has committed more than $12 million around the world to COVID-19 response efforts.

Learn more about Chevron’s COVID-19 response here.

Chevron in Thailand

Palo Alto Networks Provides Cybersecurity for the Remote Workforce

Palo Alto

Palo Alto Networks is sharing resources and programs to support business continuity during this time.

Palo Alto Networks has solutions ready to go to help organizations secure their remote workforce, such as GlobalProtect and Prisma Access.

In addition to the complicated matter of managing a remote workforce at scale, keeping that workforce secure is top of mind for many organizations. Palo Alto Networks is sharing resources and programs to support business continuity during this time. As organizations rapidly scale remote work options for employees, they need to ensure they can securely and rapidly connect to all of the applications they need, including software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud, and data center apps — and Palo Alto Networks has solutions ready to go to help organizations secure their remote workforce.

GlobalProtect for existing NGFW customers: Every Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall is designed to support always-on, secure access with GlobalProtect.

Prisma Access: Prisma Access is a globally distributed cloud service that scales automatically to provide the needed capacity for remote workers. It offers the same security functionality as Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls, but without the need to deploy new infrastructure. As the situation changes globally, this means organizations can maintain business continuity as Prisma Access will auto-scale to wherever capacity is needed.

Additionally, Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 Threat Intelligence team is providing insight on cyber threats during this time to keep organizations informed and help them stay protected from cyberattacks.

More information and resources for organizations to reference can be found here and here.

Target Donates $300 Million to the Fight Against COVID-19

Target

Back in March, Target announced their $10 million relief effort as part of their $300 million commitment to their team. Since then, Target has been collaborating closely with organizations to align support accordingly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Part of Target’s $300 million commitment will go to directly benefiting employees and their families.  Target pledged to increase its industry-leading pay by $2 an hour for its frontline workers until at least May 2nd.  Additionally, frontline workers over the age of 65, are pregnant or those with underlying medical conditions have been given up to 30 days paid leave.  This comes on top of expanding back-up care for all team members, temporarily waiving its absenteeism policy and covering quarantine and confirmed illness pay.  Bonuses have been given to 20,000 hourly store leads who manage individual departments.  Finally, $1 million will be donated to the Target Team Member Giving Fund, which was established in 2018, to assist team members who are most impacted by coronavirus

In state and local communities, Target is dedicating $5 million to foundations that support nonprofits addressing the greatest needs in their area, particularly for vulnerable, underserved and under-resourced communities.  Foundations receiving funds from Target include the Seattle Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund, which supports local orgs deploying emergency resources such as financial support and childcare, as well as the Greater New Orleans Foundation Disaster Response and Restoration Fund and its network of community organizations taking care of the elderly, homeless and more.

As part of their national response efforts, Target is giving $3 million to support national nonprofits assisting with response and recovery for impacted communities. The Center for Disease Philanthropy is one national organization that has received support from Target to continue their work building nonprofits’ response capabilities in addressing needs of the most vulnerable populations. Another recipient is Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization with a network of more than 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries.

Target is also mounting a global response, committing $1 million to support organizations that help to provide critical medical equipment and supplies to regions worldwide. These organizations include Project ECHO, an organization providing tele-medicine capabilities to remote locations and vulnerable communities in India and throughout the world; and UNICEF, which is delivering life-saving health supplies, building water and hygiene facilities and keeping kids connected to education while contributing to efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

In addition, Target supports the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The company is also one of the participating partners of Global Citizen’s One World: Together At Home, the global special event to support frontline health workers and the World Health Organization. Target’s grant will support ongoing work to track and understand the spread of the coronavirus, provide care to patients and essential supplies to frontline workers, and accelerate efforts to develop vaccines, tests and treatments.

For more information, please click here.

Comcast’s Innovative Response to COVID-19

Comcast

COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on nearly every aspect of our daily lives.  For this reason, Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky are working hard to do everything they can to support their customers, employees and communities during this unprecedented time. Some of Comcast’s relief efforts are:

• Committing $500 Million: Across the business, Comcast has committed $500 million to support its employees through continued pay and benefits where operations have been paused or impacted.

• Keeping Customers Connected: Keeping the internet accessible and reliable is more important than ever. Comcast’s technology and engineering teams are working tirelessly to support the company’s network operations 24/7 to ensure network performance and reliability.

• Offering Internet Essentials Free to New Customers: Eligible new customers will receive 60 days of Internet Essentials service, the nation’s largest, most comprehensive internet adoption program for low-income households, without charge. Additionally, the company has increased the speed of this internet service for all customers.

• Increasing Access to News & Information: The enterprise’s NBC and Sky news teams are working around the clock to keep the world informed, bringing news and information to more people than ever.

• Providing Free Educational Resources: In partnership with Common Sense Media, the company has curated thousands of hours of free educational programming into an education destination for Xfinity video customers to support remote learning for kids K-12.

• Delivering More Entertainment: The enterprise is bringing great entertainment home to consumers in new ways – offering movies on demand on the same day as their theatrical releases and making more free content available to X1 video customers.

To learn more about Comcast’s response to COVID-19, click here.

Coca-Cola Relief Effort Encompasses Over $100M in Community Support

Coca-Cola

Supporting Communities and First Responders

The Coca-Cola system, with production facilities and franchise bottling operations across the United States, continues to make and deliver the essential beverages local stores and communities need during this challenging time. But the company, its local bottlers, suppliers and employees are doing more than delivering drinks in the communities they call home. Local teams are finding ways to re-deploy resources to help meet the needs of first responders, healthcare workers, community organizations and more.

For example, the company is redirecting some of its global advertising budget to support COVID-19 prevention and relief in markets around the world. The Philippines was the first of many markets to pause advertising for all brands and redirect media spending to help provide personal protective equipment and beverages for health workers, deliver food to vulnerable families, and support small retailers in affected communities.

Supporting Foodservice Partners

To help support the restaurant community – an industry that employs more than 15 million Americans – Coca-Cola North America is providing its more than 8,000 employees across the U.S. and Canada with a $100 delivery credit for either DoorDash, Grubhub, UberEATS or Skip The Dishes to place meal delivery orders during this challenging time. Coca-Cola North America plants also have implemented routines to order takeout meals from foodservice customers as a thank-you to associates working hard to produce Coca-Cola products. This effort adds up to an immediate injection of nearly $1 million into the restaurant industry.

Coca-Cola joined forces with industry peers to support #TheGreatAmericanTakeout initiative, which encourages Americans to support the restaurant industry by ordering delivery or takeout meals. Coca-Cola is encouraging employees, bottling partners and industry partners to participate, and using its social channels to promote the movement. On April 14, The Great American Takeout gave away $10,000 in gift cards to people who order takeout. One grand prize recipient won free takeout for a year in the form of a $5,000 gift card, while 100 more winners will receive a $50 gift card, all courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company. Learn more.

Coca-Cola also launched the Coca-Cola Rapid Response Resource online portal to give restaurants access to free information and resources – from tips for optimizing takeout and drive-thru operations, to updated COVID-19 safety guidelines, to information on third-party delivery services and more.

Together We Can: Using Social and Digital Assets for Good

Coca-Cola is taking several actions to use advertising and marketing resources to spread solidarity. On April 6, Coca-Cola used company and brand social media handles to promote a message of support and togetherness, and will use the scale of Coca-Cola brand handles to share helpful information and meaningful messages from partner community organizations like the American Red Cross, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Salvation Army and Feeding America, among others.

Providing Supplies and Transportation to Help Make Masks for Healthcare Workers and Frontline Responders

In the Boston area, thousands of face shields are being assembled for delivery to medical centers around the region, with more in the works. Ray Dube, sustainability manager at Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, saw an opportunity to provide much-needed logistics and supply chain support to help nonprofit makerspace “MakeIt Labs” produce face shields to protect front-line healthcare workers.

Dube connected MakeIt volunteers with Coca-Cola plastic recycler UltrePet and packaging manufacturer EasyPak to donate and transport clean PET plastic sheeting to make the specialty shields. EasyPak donated approximately 6,000 pounds of clear PET sheeting, and Coke Northeast delivery trucks transported the Coke system’s first large-scale donation of PET sheets.

In partnership with MakeIt Labs and packaging supplier Sonoco, Coca-Cola also helped transport 6,000 pounds of plastic sheeting from Sonoco’s warehouse in North Carolina to Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Tech students and other groups will use the plastic sheeting to make 50,000+ plastic surgical shields for healthcare workers in the Atlanta area.

Another supplier, Filmquest, has generously agreed to donate 1,200 pounds of polyester film that will be assembled by MakeIt Lab volunteers into plastic surgical shields and donated to hospitals.

Helping Supply Hand Sanitizer and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

The Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Company is responding to an urgent request from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for hand sanitizer and for donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) by hosting a drop-off location at their offices and rewarding people who donate with free eight-packs of Coca-Cola’s new AHA sparkling water. The Coke bottler is producing hand sanitizer at its Atlantic, Iowa bottling facility and donating it  to the University of Iowa Hospital System.

Additionally, two suppliers – Western Container and Southeastern Container – are working with Coca-Cola bottlers and alcohol distilleries to create plastic bottles that can be filled with hand sanitizer solution and donated to healthcare and public safety workers. Western Container shipped two truckloads (over 200,000 units) of 500-ml bottles to Whiskey Hollow Distillery in Valley View, Texas. These bottles will be custom labeled by the distillery as donated hand sanitizer to Texas-area hospitals.

Providing Financial and In-Kind Support to Community Organizations

The Coca-Cola Foundation, the philanthropic arm of The Coca-Cola Company, is awarding $13.5 million in grants to five nonprofit organizations working on the front lines of the U.S. and Canadian humanitarian response to the coronavirus pandemic. The latest grants support organizations focused on providing relief to first responders and residents of economically disadvantaged communities, both in the company’s hometown of Atlanta and across North America. Read more about the organizations receiving the grants here.

For more information on what Coca-Cola is doing to battle COVID-19, click HERE.

Verizon Serves Customers During COVID-19 with Touchless Retail and More

Verizon

Verizon’s networks have been engineered to perform during moments of crisis and disaster such as hurricanes, snowstorms and flooding. During this time of heightened worry and concern, Verizon’s primary goal is to keep its customers, employees and society connected to the things that matter most to them: their family, friends and business customers.

On May 1, Verizon announced that it is revolutionizing the way it looks at retail both today and into the future with the introduction of “Touchless Retail” – innovations implemented recently that revolve around making the shopping experience both safer and more satisfying. Touchless Retail leverages both physical and digital changes to reduce the number of physical touchpoints, while streamlining the customer shopping experience. With Touchless Retail, customers begin their journey online as they set their in-store appointment for critical troubleshooting or order for in-store pickup and learn about in-store safety measures including the requirements that they wear a face covering. Upon arrival at the store, exterior and interior social distancing markers, safety partitions, sanitizing stations and employees donning face masks and gloves all ensure the physical observance of public health safety practices. Store hours have been adjusted to allow for one-customer-to-one employee ratio appointments.

On April 27, Verizon announced that it is extending its commitment to keep its customers connected through June 30. This means Verizon will neither terminate service nor charge late fees to postpaid wireless, residential, and small business customers that notify Verizon of their inability to pay their bills due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  Verizon has also added data to customers’ wireless data plans to assist them as they work through this time of social distancing and working from home.

Additionally, Verizon signed onto the FCC’s new “Keep Americans Connected” pledge. Verizon’s new customer commitment will help ensure connectivity and offer assistance to customers and small businesses facing challenges from the global crisis.

“Now more than ever, we need to ensure that our customers, their families and businesses have the ability to connect to the internet even if they’re facing financial hardship from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” said Hans Vestberg, Verizon Chairman and CEO. “We want to ensure that our customers can continue to use the internet to work, learn, and carry on with their lives as we all address this collective challenge. We’re confident this joint effort will help make that happen.”

Verizon is also closely monitoring network usage in the most impacted areas. Verizon will work with and prioritize network demand in assisting many U.S. hospitals, first responders and government agencies, as needed.

Verizon also donated $3 million to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of a partnership with Global Citizens One World: Together At Home global broadcast special to help aid healthcare workers in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The globally televised and live-streamed special aired on April 18 and featured performances and appearances from international entertainers. Through the United Nations Foundation, the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund will help support the WHO and partners’ efforts to track and understand the spread of the virus; to ensure patients get the care they need and frontline workers get essential supplies and information; and to accelerate efforts to develop vaccines, tests, and treatments.

Verizon’s most recent donation brings the company’s total support of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO to $5 million and their total COVID-19 crisis commitment to over $50 million in contributions and donations to nonprofits directed at serving students, healthcare workers, first responders, and small businesses.

For daily updates on what Verizon is doing, please click here.

PepsiCo Takes Proactive Steps in the United States to Support Communities in Need

PepsiCo

PepsiCo’s Domestic Response

With a global pandemic wreaking havoc in millions of communities around the world, global food and beverage company PepsiCo and its philanthropic arm, The PepsiCo Foundation, are donating more than $50 million for food and other critical support needed in these vulnerable communities. As part of this effort, PepsiCo is providing funding for protective gear for healthcare workers as well as testing and screening services.

Due to many districts cancelling in-person classes in the United States, numerous students are left hungry with no school meals. In response to this crisis, The PepsiCo Foundation has provided $1 million and partnered Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign to fund emergency grants to organizations including schools, food banks, and community groups who are feeding kids. Additionally, The PepsiCo Foundation has provided $1 million and joined forces with the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty and the USDA to deliver nutritious meals to students of rural schools closed due to COVID-19, and has donated $250,000 to GENYOUth’s “For Schools’ Sake” Fund to aid in meal distribution to schools. These efforts, along with The PepsiCo Foundation’s own Food for Good nutrition program, will deliver at least 20 million nutritious meals to help increase children’s access to food nationwide during COVID-19.

PepsiCo has also donated $2 million to the Children’s Health Fund to aid mobile health clinics that are administering COVID-19 screening, testing, personal protective equipment (PPE) and support services in 21 communities. 

PepsiCo is committed to helping entire communities navigate this difficult time.  In order to support restaurant workers the have been particularly affected, the company has donated $2 million to the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation to support the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund and job training for women aimed at long-term economic recovery.  Other contributions from PepsiCo include a $3 million donation to Team Rubicon to support food delivery operations for their partners Feeding America, Meals on Wheels and others in 100 locations across the United States, and a donation of $150,000 to the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund to support the city’s most in-need residents.

Recognizing that New York has been particularly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, PepsiCo is committed to assisting communities throughout the state.  In Westchester, for instance, The PepsiCo Foundation has contributed $500,000 to White Plains Hospital to bolster the hospital’s capacity and provide frontline medical workers with personal protective equipment, $100,000 to Feeding Westchester to give residents shelf-stable meals and fresh produce through mobile orders and drive throughs to limit contact, and $100,000 to United Way Westchester and Putnam to support area nonprofits responding to COVID-19. PepsiCo is donating $100,000 to the New York Community Trust Response and Impact Fund to accelerate FDA-approved rapid testing for COVID-19.The company has also provided $500,000 to The Robin Hood Foundation’s Emergency Relief Fund to provide immediate financial support to nonprofits that serve vulnerable groups in New York City, and has provided $100,000 to the Bridgeport Rescue Mission to support COVID-19 testing in New York City as well.

The PepsiCo Foundation has significantly contributed to the communities in the United States. To learn more about PepsiCo’s responses to the COVID-19 outbreak, please click here.

PepsiCo Provides Food and Essential Relief to Help Communities Worldwide Affected by COVID-19

PepsiCo.

PepsiCo’s International Response

As the effects of COVID-19 continue to be felt, more healthcare systems around the world need proper funding to assist the healthcare workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. In response, PepsiCo expanded their efforts to provide humanitarian relief to impacted communities around the world.

In Europe, where entire countries are on lockdown and many hospitals are over capacity, PepsiCo aims to support local health and relief systems in hardest-hit areas. The company has donated $5 million to organizations in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasia, and Turkey to support healthcare providers and provide more than 1 million servings of food for those in need and has given $2.5 million to charitable organizations across Europe through the U.N. Foundation. PepsiCo has also donated $600,000 to the Red Cross in Italy, Spain and France to fund personal protection equipment (PPE) and health equipment for medical responders, urgent health transportation for affected citizens, logistical support for health facilities, and essential goods for those unable to leave their homes due to quarantine. Further donations in Europe include a $500,000 grant to Spanish nonprofit Educo’s “Dining Scholarships” program, a $200,000 grant to Banco Alimentar Contra A Fome in Portugal to provide close to 750,000 meals for those in need, and $140,000 to the Belgium and Netherland Red Cross outposts to support the “Watch Out for Each Other” network that links volunteers to those in need of mental and practical support.

As Latin America is expected to see an increase in COVID-19 cases, PepsiCo is helping the region prepare by strengthening their local food bank capabilities. Through this effort, PepsiCo is providing more than 10 million meals in Mexico for out of school children and their families through nonprofits Un Kilo De Ayuda and Save the Children, and is providing more than 800,000 additional meals in Honduras, El Salvador, and Venezuela with nonprofits Rise Against Hunger and United Way. Additionally, the company has donated $1.5 million to The Global FoodBanking Network to allow food banks in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Uruguay to stock up on key food staples, as well as train staff on how to reduce COVID-19 transmission.

PepsiCo is also investing in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, focusing specifically on  meal distribution and healthcare. They have donated more than 40 million meals in Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, and South Africa in partnership with local food banks and leading nonprofit partners. PepsiCo has also joined forces with the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the Smile Foundation and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics to provide more than 10 million meals and 25,000 COVID-19 testing kits in India. Further, the company has provided $1.6 million dollars in funding to Vietnam and the Philippines to initiate Vietnam’s “Millions of Meals” program, provide meals and medical supplies for citizens with the Vietnam Youth Union and the Vietnam Young Physician Association, and deliver assistance to over 7.6 million people in the Manila metro area with a $500,000 grant to Project Ugnayan.  In Australia and New Zealand, PepsiCo has committed more than $600,000 to deliver more than 1 million meals with Foodbank Australia and the Salvation Army Foodbank Project. As part of their work supporting healthcare systems, PepsiCo has donated over $280,000 to Tkiyet Um Ali’s Hospital Programs in Jordan and $100,000 to Lebanon’s Red Cross. Lastly, PepsiCo has provided $1.1 million  to The Hubei Red Cross and the China Women’s Development Foundation to fund  protective gear for healthcare workers in China and South Korea.

PepsiCo continues to expand its global effort to provide monetary support and necessities to communities in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information, please click here.

Mars, Inc. Commits $20 Million to Communities in COVID-19 Response

Mars, Inc.

Mars, Incorporated made a $20 million commitment to better support the communities in which it operates.

As part of their commitment to serving vulnerable populations, Mars, Inc. has made a $5 million donation to CARE to help fund critical supplies and expertise for women, children and refugee populations in underdeveloped countries.

In another part of the support package, Mars, Inc. will provide $2 million of support to help the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) manage logistics for emergency food and lifesaving equipment to hospitals in impacted areas, assisting in the transport of critical supplies for all United Nations agencies as they respond to the pandemic.

Mars, Inc. is also donating $1 million to Humane Society International (HSI) to help ease the burden of overcapacity shelters. This contribution also intends to assist cats and dogs that have been abandoned, left behind or surrendered to shelters due to their owners falling ill or no longer having the financial means to care for a pet.

While Mars has donated $8 million in this support package, the balance of $12 million will come from a combination of cash and in-kind donations from across the markets where Mars operates, in addition to donations from its Foundations including: The Mars Wrigley Foundation, the Banfield Foundation, the Pedigree Foundation and the Tasty Bite Foundation.

For more information on Mars’ efforts, click here.

ExxonMobil Response to COVID-19 Includes New Partnerships

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil is working to help meet the needs of health care professionals fighting the COVID-19 pandemic on the front lines, as well as those socially distancing themselves at home. While those needs continue to evolve, the company remains focused on working to meet global energy demand. Below are just some examples of what ExxonMobil is doing to help fight COVID-19. For a more comprehensive list of initiatives, please click here.

Protecting travelers and TSA officers

To protect travelers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers during the COVID-19 pandemic, TSA needed thousands of gallons of disinfectant – and they needed it quickly. Thanks to close coordination between ExxonMobil, one of the largest producers of isopropyl alcohol, a key sanitizer ingredient, and Univar Solutions, one of the largest chemical distributors, the surface disinfectant was produced and distributed to TSA in record time, in just days, rather than the weeks it would have taken before the pandemic.

ExxonMobil is increasing production of IPA to help meet higher demand resulting from the pandemic. Its chemical plant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has recently been able to achieve an increased monthly production level which equates to enough IPA to supply a monthly equivalent of nearly 50 million 4-ounce bottles of medical-grade sanitizer.

The scale and urgency of TSA’s request required detailed planning and a finely tuned logistics supply chain to manufacture, package and rapidly deliver the product to airports around the country.

From the Baton Rouge facility, the IPA was shipped to Univar Solutions’ packaging plant in Conroe, TX. From there the disinfectant was mixed, bottled and swiftly shipped north to TSA’s distribution facility near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

That disinfectant is now being distributed to airports nationwide, helping keep travelers, medical personnel and TSA officers safe. And ExxonMobil continues to maximize production of isopropyl alcohol and other important products needed to combat COVID-19 in communities across the country.

Maximizing supply of IPA—key ingredient in medical hand sanitizer

When it comes to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, it doesn’t matter the size of the company. Everyone has a role to play.

For ExxonMobil – one of the world’s largest producers of isopropyl alcohol (IPA), a key ingredient in medical hand sanitizer – it means getting the product to where it’s needed most. For E.T. Browne – the small, family-owned manufacturer of Palmer’s® personal care products – it means pivoting its business to make medical hand sanitizer for U.S. military personnel and medical first responders.

The decision to repurpose its factory in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, from making lip balm and body lotion to making hand sanitizer wasn’t the hardest part for E.T. Browne. It was obtaining key ingredients like IPA, which is in high demand due to the global emergency. Without IPA, E.T. Browne would not only be unable to make the hand sanitizer, but it also faced the prospect of shutting down its factory, which employs nearly 300 workers. That’s when ExxonMobil, whose Baton Rouge chemical facility is home to the world’s largest plant producing IPA, agreed to help.

ExxonMobil is maximizing its supply of IPA and other chemical products used in making a range of essential tools in the fight against COVID-19. ExxonMobil is also planning donations to other area hospitals. For ExxonMobil, supplying isopropyl alcohol is standard business, but doing so in this case required a swift response and a high priority.

Isopropyl alcohol is just one of many products helping to keep medical workers safe and people healthy. IPA, as an effective disinfectant, can be found in hand sanitizers, alcohol wipes and disinfectant sprays – products that are important in fighting the spread of COVID-19.

Thanking Houston-area COVID-19 responders with meals, masks

ExxonMobil is providing thousands of meals and medical face masks for Houston-area health care workers, police officers and firefighters responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a new initiative that brings total contributions for Houston-area relief to $450,000.

ExxonMobil is contributing $100,000 for personal protective equipment, such as medical masks, to Texas Medical Center member hospitals, the Houston Police Foundation, the Fire Fighters Foundation of Houston and the Spring Fire Department.

Another $100,000 will go to the TX Restaurant Relief Fund for the preparation and delivery of approximately 6,000 meals for frontline workers at these organizations. Prominent Houston chefs will participate in the effort that will enable participating restaurants to bring needed work to furloughed staff. The Texas Restaurant Association’s nonprofit arm established the TX Restaurant Relief Fund last month to provide immediate financial support to the state’s independent restaurateurs and their employees who have been heavily impacted by the loss of business due to COVID-19.

The support comes in addition to its recent contribution of $250,000 to the Houston Food Bank and Montgomery County Food Bank to provide about one million meals to Houston-area residents.

ExxonMobil, which has about 11,000 employees living and working the greater Houston area, remains focused on keeping its workforce safe and healthy to maintain its operations and maximize production of materials critical to the global response.

Throughout COVID-19, Qualcomm Focuses on Delivering 5G

Qualcomm

Now, more than ever, we need to stay connected, especially as so many around the globe work to slow the spread of COVID-19 through social distancing. To help keep you connected to your community, Qualcomm continues to focus on delivering critical wireless technologies like 5G.

Qualcomm is committed to providing reliable connectivity solutions to maintain business continuity, especially in the critical areas of healthcare, small business support, and remote education—all while protecting the safety of its employees and customers.

Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm, talks about the status and future of 5G in this interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune and in a virtual interview with CNBC.

Qualcomm also has a long history of philanthropic and community involvement. It continues to evaluate ways to scale that commitment at a time when so much help is needed. To support its global communities, Qualcomm has donated to the following efforts, and remains committed to providing monetary and in-kind donations throughout this crisis:

Community and Charitable Donations:

• Charities Aid Foundation America, Support for Association of the Italian Red Cross

• Charities Aid Foundation America, Support for the Flexport.org Fund

• China Red Cross, Emergency Response

• City of San Diego’s Small Business Relief Fund

• India Prime Minister COVID-19 Relief Fund

• Silicon Valley Community Foundation, COVID-19 Regional Response Fund

• The San Diego Foundation, COVID-19 Community Response Fund/Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank

• United Nations Foundation, COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO

• Thousands of laptops and other devices to schools and community nonprofits

• Qualifying employee donations will be matched by Qualcomm

For more information, please click here.

P&G COVID-19 Response Focuses on Protecting P&G People, Serving Consumers, Supporting Communities

P&G

Protecting P&G People:

P&G people can work confidently knowing the Company stands with and behind them.

P&G is constantly evaluating and updating the robust measures already in place to help its people who are making, packing and shipping P&G products stay safe at work, and, where possible, enabling others to work from home.

This includes access control measures like temperature scans, shift rotations, queueing avoidance and physical distancing; protective equipment including hand sanitizers and masks; and comprehensive, methodical cleaning of all production areas, including regular sanitization and surface disinfection that exceeds the most rigorous health authority standards.

P&G built sustainable and robust employee policies and a culture that can support, nurture, and endure for the long term, with robust health & wellness benefits, access to virtual medical visits without cost, pay continuity, paid leave, flexible work arrangements and more.

Serving Consumers:

P&G is maximizing the availability of products that help people and their families with their health, hygiene and cleaning needs, which have never been greater. 

P&G is running extra shifts, putting idled equipment back into service quickly, and constantly finding new ways to deliver more of the products consumers depend on.

Millions of P&G products are also being donated, helping to ensure families have basic access to the everyday essentials many of us take for granted.

P&G is using marketing and communications expertise to encourage consumers to help flatten the curve and slow the spread of the virus.

And P&G is using our brands’ voices to share important safety, cleaning and hygiene messages with consumers

Supporting Communities:

P&G has a long history of supporting communities in times of need – now is no exception.

P&G product and in-kind donations so far add up to tens of millions of dollars across more than 30 brands, more than 200 different organizations, and in more than 30 countries – and will continue to increase as it works with communities around the world to support their efforts.

P&G modified equipment to produce hand sanitizer in nearly a dozen global manufacturing sites, using it to ensure its people can continue operating safely and sharing it with hospitals, health care facilities and relief organizations.

Work is underway to produce critically needed non-medical face masks in every region of the world.

And P&G leveraged P&G R&D, engineering and manufacturing capability to quickly produce face shields which are currently being used in hospitals and COVID-19 testing centers.

SAP Responds to Coronavirus Disruptions with Free Offerings

SAP

Citizens, businesses, and governments face unprecedented challenges as COVID-19’s impact on the global economy continues. SAP’s mission of helping the world run better and improving people’s lives has never been more relevant.

Below is a summary of free SAP offerings that can be used immediately to help support governments, businesses, and individuals navigate the outbreak. Not only are these solutions available at no cost, they are also available instantly, in most cases with the click of a button:

Supply Chain and Business Continuity:

• Open Access to SAP Ariba Discovery: With SAP Ariba Discovery, any buyer can post their immediate sourcing needs and any supplier can immediately respond to deliver. By quickly connecting buyers and suppliers, we minimize disruption caused by shipment delays, capacity issues, and increased consumer demand. The SAP Ariba Network represents more than 4M suppliers in over 190 countries and $3.21 trillion in commerce, helping to keep supply chains intact in times of crisis.

• Supply Continuity Pulse: Businesses are facing the challenge of maintaining delivery of products and services during this time of disruption. Supply Continuity Pulse is designed to help business leaders prepare and plan for supply disruptions due to remote and furloughed workforces.

• COVID-19 Customer Confidence Pulse: Whether you are a B2B or B2C company, it’s more important now than ever to keep an on-going pulse on customer confidence and take decisive action to retain customer trust and brand loyalty. This pre-built solution helps organizations monitor customer expectations and capture feedback in real time, so they can know what to stop, start, and continue in order to maintain strong relationships with customers and business continuity. The Customer Confidence Pulse is provided free of charge to any size organization within non-regulated industries across the globe.

Travel Disruption:

• Concur TripIt Pro Free Offer: In response to COVID-related travel schedule changes and cancellations, SAP Concur helped anxious travelers navigate these developments. TripIt from SAP Concur processes hundreds of thousands of travel itineraries for people around the globe, monitors their flights, and alerts them of any changes or delays. Between March 13 and April 14, 2020, individual travelers had the opportunity to sign-up for TripIt, download the app, and receive TripIt Pro for free for six months.

• COVID-19 Airlift Operation: Together with the German Federal Foreign Office, SAP launched a web application to help coordinate the repatriation process of Germans abroad. Using SAP Cloud Platform, the app helps get German citizens home safely from wherever they are in the world.

Education:

• Higher Education: Remote Learning Pulse & Remote Educator Pulse: Provided free of charge to higher education organizations, these solutions help keep remote students and faculty engaged and empowered to learn by discovering where educators can improve to ensure learning success.

• K-12 Remote Learning Pulse: With the shift to remote learning models, school and district leaders need a way to quickly understand how to best support educators, students, and their families during this transition. These solutions help your schools navigate these uncertain times and prepare for the shift to remote learning programs.

• SAP offers a new digital learning initiative with innovative, interactive educational content to support students, professionals and anyone wishing to continue to learn during this challenging time. This initiative is based on three educational pillars – (1) massive open online courses via openSAP (MOOCs), (2) a free learning offering for university students with system access and Global Certification from SAP (3) the SAP Young Thinkers Program that offers learning opportunities for digitalization with a focus on computer science, economics and creative solutions, and learning methodologies targeting the 17 SDGs.

Telework Management:

• Remote + On-site Work Pulse: Remote + On-site Work Pulse helps organizations understand how their employees are doing and what support they need as they adapt to new work environments.

• Ruum Collaboration Tool: With this project management and collaboration tool, business and government workers can telework more effectively. With Ruum’s custom checklist templates adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), businesses, government employees, and individuals can plan, prepare, and respond to COVID-19.

• SAP Litmos: To help support remote work, SAP Litmos is offering a completely free Remote Readiness & Effectivity Academy equipped with training content for anyone, anytime, anywhere. The ready-to-watch video-based courses are designed to help establish best practices for remote work, maintain the highest levels of hygiene and mental wellness for workers, and develop leadership during times of change and challenge.

Healthcare:

• COVID-19 Pre-screen and Routing: Health and government organizations are flooded with phone calls seeking information about COVID-19, including questions about symptoms, community incidents, and closures. SAP Qualtrics created a COVID-19 Pre-screen and Routing solution any health or government organization can use to provide accurate information at scale, while automatically creating reports to identify trends, patterns, and gaps in information requests. This solution is available free of charge to federal, state, and local governments and public health organizations.

• Healthcare Workforce Pulse: With Healthcare Workforce Pulse, healthcare administrators and leaders can rapidly understand, prioritize, and respond to the most immediate needs across their teams so they can better serve patients, employees, and clinicians during this time of crisis. The Healthcare Workforce Pulse is provided free of charge to all healthcare providers, systems, and businesses on the frontline responding to COVID-19.

• COVID-19 Dynamic Call Center Script: Qualtrics has created the Dynamic Call Center Script to help healthcare staff deliver accurate and up-to-date information. Governments and public health organizations can easily update the knowledge base; access automated reports showing trends, patterns, and gaps in information requests; and collect information from people who may be symptomatic. This solution is available free of charge to federal, state, and local governments and public health organizations.

The world is facing an unprecedented level of uncertainty as we collectively fight COVID-19. However, by opening access to SAP technology we hope to help address these global challenges.  For more information, please click here

Nike’s COVID-19 Response Includes Innovation, Working Closely with Suppliers

Nike

Giving back to communities:

Nike’s leaders, the Nike Foundation and Nike have committed more than $17.5 million to COVID-19 response efforts around the world. The support includes funding efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners, as well as support for local response efforts in the communities around the world where Nike employees live and work. They are also supporting local organizations in global key cities as they work to meet immediate needs, such as food assistance and medical care.

Nike is also teaming up with its employees, providing a two-to-one match for all employee donations to support community organizations anywhere in the world. And it will continue to provide product support to local nonprofits and schools through Good 360 and other existing partners.

Using innovation to help:

Working closely with health professionals at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Nike’s innovation, manufacturing and product teams have come together to provide for an urgent need: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the form of full-face shields and powered, air-purifying respirator (PAPR) lenses to protect against the coronavirus (COVID-19). Nike is donating full-face shields and PAPR lenses to health systems across Oregon, along with health systems in the greater Boston, Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis areas.

Nike is also making a donation to health systems in Cleveland, Ohio, near the home of Lubrizol, which has generously donated its ESTANE® thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) polymers to support the manufacturing of this PPE. In addition, Nike is donating 250,000 three-ply disposable face masks to New York State.

Nike will continue to seek ways to further support the courageous healthcare workers in their tireless efforts to support, heal and comfort our communities through these extraordinary times.

Play inside, play for the world:

Sport brings us together as a unifying force for good. And while many athletes may not be able to play as they normally would, Nike is committed to ensuring that communities all over the world can still turn to sport as a beacon of hope and resilience that inspires us all.

Today, athletes may not be playing in front of thousands in packed stadiums, but they can — and are — playing for millions by choosing to stay at home. Inspired by athletes who are playing in their kitchens, living rooms, driveways and garages, Nike recently launched a campaign, telling the whole world, “If you ever dreamed of playing for millions around the world, now is your chance.” Nike is encouraging everyone to #playinside and #playfortheworld, and delivering new ways to access sport during this unprecedented time at home.

Helping athletes* stay active through Nike platforms.

We all need new ways to keep moving and access sport. Through Nike’s digital ecosystem — the Nike app, the Nike Running Club app, the Nike Training Club app, social channels and Nike.com — Nike is providing athletes around the world with tools, motivation and affirmation to help fuel physical and mental health.

Nike is also offering NTC Premium, the Nike Training Club’s subscription-based service, for free in the U.S. The platform includes a library of more than 185 online workouts for all fitness levels, ranging in length (15- to 60-minutes), type (yoga, total body strength, core work, HIIT sessions, etc.) and equipment needs (bodyweight-only and more).

Helping kids stay active, too

Kids are Made to Play. That’s why Nike has made a commitment to get kids moving. Nike works with partners around the world to remove barriers to entry and offer play- and sport-based programming to 17 million kids. But balancing the need to keep kids moving with the need to keep communities safe is a challenge. Many of Nike’s Made to Play partners offer excellent resources to help kids stay active at home — because active kids do better in every way, no matter the circumstances. These include the UK’s Discovery Education, Marathon Kids, Active Schools, JUMP-JAM, and the How to Coach Kids Program.

Helping people stay active at home, together with the sporting industry

Nike collaborated with the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) and other member companies to launch a physical activity guide to support the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote physical activity. WHO’s #healthyathome campaign encourages people to stay active while at home during the COVID-19 crisis, and the guide provides resources to help.

To learn more about Nike’s commitment to creating active communities for all, click here.

Working closely with suppliers

Nike is working with suppliers to support their efforts in response to the dynamic and unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 situation. The evolving and challenging marketplace dynamics mean that Nike and its suppliers must make some difficult decisions in the short term, as they work together to mitigate longer-term impacts and develop sustained viability for their businesses and employees.

Nike continues to place orders, taking into account impacts of market dynamics. Nike will continue to pay in full for finished product from all suppliers globally, while honoring previously agreed payment terms for product in production. In the case of cancelled orders, Nike policies and agreements with suppliers are, and have always been, that Nike will pay the appropriate amount of the order, depending on the stage of production as communicated by their supplier to enable the supplier to recover costs associated with the canceled order. Nike is also working with industry organizations and other global stakeholders to develop broad based approaches to address the current situation and help people who work in supply chains globally.

IBM Leads the Way to a COVID-19 Cure With Supercomputers & Trusted Data

IBM

IBM recently announced with the White House a new IBM-led effort to make an unprecedented amount of computing power—more than 400 petaflops—available to help government and academic researchers better understand COVID-19, its treatments and potential cures. The collaboration involves the U.S. Department of Energy, MIT and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as six national labs and other technology providers, and the pooled resources will create the most powerful high -performance computing platform on the planet, all devoted to accelerating scientific discovery to fight COVID-19. According to IBM, it’s like a Manhattan Project for attacking the coronavirus, and IBM is proud to have convened this critical effort.

And there’s great potential for supercomputers to make a meaningful difference in this fight. Perhaps you’re already seen that IBM Summit, the world’s fastest supercomputer, is already helping researchers speedily find drug compounds that could hold promise in fighting the coronavirus. Out of more than 8,000 potential drug combinations that might work, Summit has helped researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee identify 77 most likely candidates, and IBM data scientists are working with the DOE to speed the search.

Putting trusted data and insights at the fingertips of citizens and health experts
Trusted data is at the heart of IBM’s newly-launched Watson Assistant for Citizens “chatbots,” which bring together advanced analytics and speech recognition capabilities to help government agencies and other organizations deal with an unprecedented flood of requests from citizens. The solution puts years of experience in AI and natural language processing technologies to work in creating virtual assistants that pool and understand trusted data from external sources — including health guidance from national agencies and local sources such as links to school closings, regional health news, insight on unemployment claims processes, and documents on government websites — to automate responses to frequently asked questions about COVID-19 that come in via a phone call or text, and to get that information into the hands of citizens in seconds or minutes, not hours. IBM has provided this IBM Cloud-based technology to health agencies and governments in Europe and the US.

Putting technology in the hands of the first responders
In mid-March, IBM unveiled a program for independent developers to work on COVID-19 issues. The “Call For Code” program has brought thousands of developers together on projects like helping first responders in California fires and with rebuilding Puerto Rico after the hurricane; more than 210,000 participants from 165 nations have taken part in Call for Code and created more than 8,000 applications focused on natural disaster preparedness and relief.

Now, IBM is steering resources to marshal the “Call for Code Global Challenge” to focus on solutions aimed at COVID-19…. aimed specifically at improving communication for medical teams and emergency services, and improving remote learning, since millions of students around the world are now in virtual classrooms. Working with IBM technical experts, it’s all going to be built on open source software and powered by Watson, with data from The Weather Company.

Helping virtual education around the globe
In Europe, 10 countries (and more than 1200 schools) are receiving support from a partnership between IBM and Cisco to implement distance learning tools and curriculum, enabled in part by the volunteer efforts of 3,000 IBMers. More than a million students are getting access to their studies, as well as a special curriculum that allows students to earn digital badges that can help them qualify for jobs. This week IBM began a similar effort across Latin America, and is working with educators in the United States as well, including in New York City, where IBM is helping 300,000 city students access their lessons.

And there’s more…

• Early on, IBM’s Watson Health unit made the IBM Clinical Development system available without charge to national health agencies to help accelerate the development of drug treatments — it’s technology used by pharma companies to reduce the time and cost of clinical trials by centralizing and organizing clinical trial details, and provides access to clinical trial data from any web-enabled device. The IBM software was first offered to Chinese health officials, and now is being provided to a wider network of national health agencies.

• IBM’s World Community Grid launched a crowdsourcing project with Scripps Research to tap the spare computing power on our personal computers to screen compounds that might be utilized to treat COVID-19. To help Scripps conduct virtual experiments that require the processing of an immense amount of data, anyone around the world with a computer or laptop can download a World Community Grid app and “donate” surplus computing power when the devices are idle. This “virtual supercomputing” effort complements the HPC Consortium that IBM helped launch in partnership with the White House, creating a platform that anyone can contribute to.

• Even simpler things are important now. IBM’s senior exec in California located and donated 15,000 medical masks to the Silicon Valley Medical Center Foundation, and IBM engineers in Argentina have recruited hundreds from across the country to design and print 3-D masks, with the goal to create 48,000 masks at a fraction of the cost of buying them.

AT&T Develops Unique Initiatives that Help Overcome COVID-19

AT&T

As AT&T responds to COVID-19, the health and safety of its employees and customers remains a top priority. The work AT&T is doing is critical to millions of people and companies around the world, and AT&T is committed to being there when its customers and colleagues need them most.

Here are just some of the ways AT&T is responding:

• AT&T is helping feed front line responders through a $5.5 million commitment to provide much needed support – in the form of nourishing meals – for first responders, medical personnel and others impacted by COVID-19. The effort kicks off with a $1.5 million contribution to World Central Kitchen.  For more on how AT&T is connecting first responders, click here.

• AT&T Expands Support for Customers Amid COVID-19 – AT&T is helping you stay connected.

• AT&T Offers Savings to Schools to Support eLearning – With the COVID-19 virus having unprecedented impacts on our society and keeping millions of students and teachers home for the foreseeable future, AT&T is stepping up to enable virtual classrooms across America.

• AT&T Connectivity Enabling Automated Robots for Health Care and Retail – AT&T is working with XENEX to connect their LightStrike™ Germ-Zapping Robots™ that use intense UV light to deactivate deadly pathogens and help hospitals fight infections and save lives. With Brain Corp, AT&T is helping to enable robotics for cleaning, inventory delivery, and shelf-analytics for retailers and other essential businesses.

• Business Cybersecurity Best Practices – Given the rapid move for many to work from home, organizations have either been scrambling to quickly roll out solutions to keep employees connected or relying upon their contingency plan in place. Protecting your organization and its suddenly remote workforce is essential.

To learn more about our COVID-19 support efforts for first responders, our employees and our customers, click here.