[Editor’s Note: For video footage from Marriott’s Spirit To Serve Our Communities Day click here. To read Bill Marriott’s blog about the topic visit marriottonthemove .]
With demands on shelters and hunger relief organizations increasing worldwide, Marriott International, Inc. (MAR: NYSE) has placed a special emphasis on shelter and food—one of its signature social responsibility issues—during its global Spirit To Serve Our Communities Day. This annual event engages the company’s more than 151,000 employees at more than 3,000 properties in the United States and 66 other countries and territories to volunteer in their local communities.
In Atlanta, Chairman and CEO J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr., City Council President Lisa Borders and employees from local Marriott hotels will sort thousands of pounds of food at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. With nearly 70 hotels and approximately 5,000 employees, the Atlanta metro region is one of the company’s top three markets. Last year, Marriott employees in Atlanta donated 4,000 hours of community service. [For more images of the 
Atlanta event, click here.]
Marriott employees across the nation and the globe are participating in similar events. For example:"
• In the Washington, D.C., metro area, the headquarters of Marriott International and the community where Marriott got its start as a Hot Shoppes restaurant more than 80 years ago—Marriott executives will join nearly 2,000 employees on 26 different volunteer projects, ranging from building homes in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to sorting and packing food at the Capital Area Food Bank. President and Chief Operating Officer Bill Shaw will visit Food and Friends to prepare meals 
to be delivered to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses.
• In Phoenix, Ariz., hotel employees are donating tuna, peanut butter, soap, powdered milk, cereal, pasta, dried beans, rice and canned fruit to their local food bank, as well as over 1,000 new children’s toothbrushes for the Children’s Dental Clinic. They are also serving over 1,000 meals to the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul of Phoenix.
• In Dubai, Marriott hotels are supporting the United Nation’s World Food Program, which feeds and educates 70 million people in 80 of the world’s poorest countries. By donating 5 United Arab Emirates dirhams (AED), the equivalent of just over one U.S. dollar, from every lunch and dinner check, they plan to raise 100,000 AED (just over $27,000) this year.
• Supporting Marriott’s 13-year partnership with Habitat for Humanity International, hotels in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai organized teams of associates and guests to help build new homes for local families in need.
• In Egypt, Brazil and Malaysia, associates are working with their local communities to donate and serve food. The Cairo Marriott Hotel is preparing boxed lunches for more than 140 children who live at their local SOS Children’s Village, a home for neglected and orphaned children The Renaissance Sao Paulo established a soup kitchen for the homeless, and at the Renaissance in Kota Bharu, 35 employees donated meals to a nearby home for underprivileged senior citizens.
Marriott has a long history of Community Engagement and Social Responsibility. Last year, the company branded and focused its “Spirit To Serve Our Communities” program to address these signature issues, which spell “SERVE”: Shelter and Food, Environment, Readiness for Hotel Careers, Vitality of Children, and Embracing Diversity and People with Disabilities.
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