Global Service Event

Each year Duke Energy focuses for one month on a major volunteerism effort — the Global Service Event (GSE).

One of the unique aspects of the GSE is that it's a grassroots effort. Employees and retirees identify needs in their own communities and provide leadership, from volunteer recruitment to project management. The Duke Energy Foundation supports these activities financially with community improvement grants for project supplies and materials.

This activity got its start in June 1998 when the company held a Duke Energy Volunteer Week to observe its first birthday as Duke Energy. The following year, the observance was expanded into a monthlong, annual event called the Global Service Event.

During the 2007 Global Service Event, employees and retirees planned and participated in more than 500 volunteer projects, assisting more than 370 nonprofit partners in 153 communities across the U.S.!

The Global Service Event is a way we can combine our resources and expertise across the company to help communities where we live and work. The GSE complements year-round volunteerism at Duke Energy.

From our Global Service Event:

Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers joined employees from corporate real estate services and the supply chain team to weatherize, repair and paint the Charlotte home of an elderly client of the Mecklenburg Co. Dept. of Social Services.

Volunteers in Plainfield, Indiana, get creative at the Horizon House, as they spend the afternoon organizing the nonprofit's donation center and classrooms, cleaning lockers and helping out with invitations for an upcoming fundraiser.

Members of the Duke Energy Greensboro Retiree Chapter helped campers at Victory Junction Gang Camp have a rocking good summer. They built, donated and delivered 23 rocking chairs to the camp, which helps children with chronic medical conditions.

Union Gas and DEGT employees in Burlington, Ontario spruced up the Carpenter’s Hospice center by weeding, edging, removing debris and applying more than 25 yards of new mulch.

More than 20 Duke Energy volunteers joined forces to help clean up debris along East Fort State Park just outside of Batavia, OH. As a result of their hard work, the team removed an estimated 350-400 pounds of trash.