UPSers John Vera and Bill Torres spent six weeks in the Dominican Republic supporting the World Food Programme’s disaster relief efforts following the January 12th earthquake in Haiti. Here’s a look back from John:

After six extremely grueling weeks, both mentally and physically, Bill Torres and I have come to the conclusion of our Haiti humanitarian mission.  Although we were stationed out of the Dominican Republic, it did not make the work load any less difficult or less stressful. On the contrary, the distance often hampered our goal of getting the goods into an impoverished Haiti quickly and efficiently. Since we orchestrated the logistical moves out of the Santo Domingo airport it was often evident that the need and urgency we felt to deliver the goods was not reciprocated by the locals, especially the owners of the bonded warehouses where the goods were stored.

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This weekend was busy for UPSers focused on helping Haiti:

•  In Miami, more than 50 UPS volunteers boxed up over 2,000 cartons full of blankets, sleeping mats and towels in a UPS warehouse  
• In Carteret, NJ volunteers from UNICEF and UPS boxed up 2,000 sets of underwear, shirts, shorts, sandals, toothbrushes and toothpaste Read More »

On December 26, 2004, the world awoke to the news that a massive tsunami had struck the coasts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and seven other coastal nations bordering the Indian Ocean. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake that spawned the tsunami had the longest duration ever observed, lasting between 8 and 10 minutes, and it produced waves up to 50 feet high that traveled as far as Africa, 3,000 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. Read More »

It has been seven years now that UPS has rallied its employees all over the world to volunteer during the month of October. While UPS’s culture has always supported volunteerism, there were some concerns when we proposed the program that has become Global Volunteer Month (instead of Global Volunteer Week). Read More »