Volunteer Story: Cesar

Cesar is a hand-raiser, the kind of person that sees a need and jumps right in. However, for quite a while, he hasn’t thought much about volunteering.  

“Before this, I’ve never really volunteered much, I’m sad to say. It was part of my high school requirement to do some volunteering hours for me to graduate. I ended up going to a local food bank and I helped organize the food and putting it in baggies and things that would go out to people.” 

Sometimes, it just takes being asked to help in order to dive right in. “This was my first time legitimately volunteering to do something, to get the experience and to see what it’s all about, because I didn’t have much of that in my background.” 

As an AbbVie employee, Cesar was brought into the Week of Possibilities project, which registered nearly one thousand volunteers in one week to accomplish a multitude of projects, from resource drives to full-room transformations at a number of schools. AbbVie has partnered with Heart of America for 10+ years on this incredible work.  

“I don’t have much to compare it to, but this is literally setting the tone for the future for me, and I do hope to do a lot. I did have a good time.”  

That’s the power of volunteering: seeing yourself as a solution-maker – and sometimes activating your innate ability to raise your hand. For Cesar, they found the magic first hand and see themselves helping even more in the years to come.  

“I almost don’t want to share the word too much, because what if everybody at AbbVie wants to volunteer? And then now obviously we can’t all go!” 

Don’t worry, Cesar. We’ll do our best to make sure that there is a place for all of you!