Health | Education | Diversity | Arts | Neighborhoods | Employee Volunteering in Connecticut

Since its founding more than 150 years ago, Aetna has called Connecticut home, and its Connecticut employees have cared well for this home. They have read to local children, served food to the destitute, consoled the sick, and otherwise cared for the less fortunate. For example, Hartford employees made news in 1944 when they treated those injured and displaced by a circus fire in office space they had converted into an ad-hoc clinic.

Today's Connecticut employees maintain this strong charitable tradition. Led by the Hartford and Middletown Aetna Volunteer Councils, they brighten the lives of their fellow Connecticut residents in many ways, including:

• Collecting hundreds of items ranging from soccer balls to toiletries, clipping thousands of coupons (which help financially stressed military families) and turning these into care packages for overseas soldiers and their families.
• Going to Hartford’s Noah Webster Elementary School every two weeks to mentor students in math.
• Delivering hundreds of meals to those in need though Meals on Wheels.
• Collecting clothes from employees for Clothes Make the Man, a Hartford organization that provides suitable interview and employment attire, encouragement, and career development to low-income men.
• Raising thousands of dollars for the American Heart Association’s Go Red Campaign which helps fight the number one killer of American women, heart disease.

Connecticut employees cleaned, sorted, tutored, planned, planted, scraped, and otherwise worked over a half-million hours for charitable aims since 2003, valued at over $9 million (per the Independent Sector's volunteer time dollar value estimate). Clearly, Connecticut employees are a beacon of light and a key reason that Aetna was honored with the 2005 Award for Excellence in Workplace Volunteer Programs, conferred by the Points of Light Foundation. Additionally, the volunteer efforts of two Connecticut based employees and one department, were also honored by the Points of Light Foundation with Daily Point of Light awards: Judith Lackey, Denise Zachmann, and Group Insurance employees, were recognized for their commitment to serving the community through volunteerism.