Workers Across the Nuclear Security Enterprise Give Back This Holiday Season

This holiday season, employees from across the nuclear security enterprise have found countless ways to make this time of year more cheerful by lending a helping hand to the less fortunate in their communities.

The following is a short summary of some of those efforts:

Kansas City Plant (KCP) [1]

• Through the Salvation Army's Angel Tree Program [2] , KCP employees adopted 250 children Angels and 12 family and senior Angels. KCP volunteers bought and delivered toys, games and family meals valued at $10,000.
• KCP employees donated 100 winter coats and Honeywell FM&T - the management and operations contractor at the plant - presented a check for $10,000 in support of Coats for Kids [3] . 
• As part of the Christmas in October [4] program, more than 250 KCP volunteers repaired and refurbished 17 homes for local, economically-challenged residents.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) [5]

• Each year LLNL employees stage the grassroots Brighter Holiday [6] campaign to support needy families in Alameda, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. This year lab personnel provided holiday gifts, food and money toward power and heating bills this winter to more than 75 local families.
• LLNL began its annual HOME Campaign [7] more than 35 years ago to support charities in the Greater Bay Area during the holiday months. This year, employees raised a few million dollars, breaking previous records.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) [8]

• LANL employees raised an unprecedented $1.3 million [9] in this year's United Way [10] giving campaign. Additionally, Los Alamos National Security committed to a prorated match of $1 million to bring the total donation to $2.3 million.
• As a part of LANL's annual Holiday Drive, nearly 1,500 gifts for children and seniors were donated by lab employees and subcontract personnel. 
• LANL personnel contributed 602 wreaths for Wreaths Across America [11], and volunteers with the lab helped place them at veterans' gravesites. 
• During their annual Take A Turkey to Work Day, LANL collected an impressive 314 frozen turkeys, eight Cornish Game hens, one frozen duck and two pickup trucks full of nonperishable food items. The food was distributed through San Martin de Porres Soup Kitchen and the Taos Community Kitchen

Nevada Test Site (NTS) [12]

• NNSA personnel at the Nevada Site Office gave more than $35,000 to the Combined Federal Campaign.
• National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec) employees have pledged more than $355,000 to the United Way [10] of Southern Nevada campaign, donated 140 Bicycles and 29 barrels of toys to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation [13], and gave $6,000 worth of toys to 100 children through the Salvation Army's Angel Tree Program [2] .
• Over the past year, the federal and contractor employee volunteer hours number in the tens of thousands.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) [14]

• PNNL staff donated gifts to 21 different nonprofit organizations in the area. PNNL volunteers sorted through and organized the donations that went to agencies serving children, the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the sick, the homeless, soldiers overseas and animals.
• PNNL donated a total of 10,894 items and monetary contributions of $12,375 to 21 different agencies, exceeding all previous collections.
• For their annual food drive, PNNL raised $14,000 in cash and collected 14,885 in actual canned goods, for a total donation of 30,513 lbs.
• PNNL employees have also been participating in the local Coats for Kids [3] program and raising money to buy prepaid calling cards so soldiers can call their families during the holidays.

Pantex Plant [15]

• The Pantex Christmas Project [16] hosted 46 disadvantaged families, with more than 160 children, at its annual Christmas party. After the party, the families were presented with toys, special-request gifts, clothing and food that had been donated by Pantex staff.
• B&W Pantex sponsored holiday parties for the staff and residents of the Texas State Veterans Home, located in Amarillo, Texas. B&W Pantex provided catered food, music, refreshments and bingo prizes.
• B&W Pantex donated fruit to the local Hilltop Senior Citizens Center for special Christmas baskets the center prepares for its residents.

Sandia National Laboratories [17]

• Sandia employees and retirees donated more $4 million to the United Way of Central New Mexico with more than 77 percent of employees participating in Sandia's Spirit of Giving Employee Caring Program (ECP).
• More than 500 local elementary school children with get new shoes this year because of Sandia's Shoes for Kids program, which raised more than $17,500. More than 11,500 children have received shoes through this program since it was started 53 years ago.

Savannah River Site (SRS) [18]

• The combined SRS United Way [10] campaign raised more than $2 million, including a $200,000 check from Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the SRS operating contractor for NNSA programs. The SRS campaign contributes to twelve different local United Way drives in South Carolina and Georgia.

Y-12 [19]

• B&W Y-12 employees delivered more than a ton of food, a $6,500 corporate contribution and more than $2,100 in employee donations to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee [20], an organization that provides much needed food to 165,000 people and helps 159 schools feed more than 7,500 kids in East Tennessee.
• B&W Y-12 employees raised money to charter a bus that brought home soldiers of the 278th Regimental Combat Unit [21] during their six-day holiday leave. The soldiers came home to their families in Clinton, Tenn., from Camp Shelby, Miss. The soldiers are scheduled to leave for Iraq in February.