Volunteer Feature: Abbvie

Abbvie and The Abbvie Foundation are leaders in supporting their employees and their community. The company and its charitable foundation support many of the leading nonprofits in Chicagoland and beyond. In addition, they support their employees by forming Employee Resource Groups (“ERGs”), which, “promote awareness and appreciation of our diversity, and [support] people of all backgrounds to develop and thrive in the organization.” It is no surprise that year-over-year, AbbVie is recognized as one of the best places to work.

Last year Ability at AbbVie was formed--an ERG focusing on employees with disabilities and employees who are caretakers of those with disabilities. As part of their mission, members of Ability at Abbvie decided to support a local nonprofit doing work that aligned with their goals of facilitating acceptance, support, and inclusion of people with disabilities. We are so fortunate they chose to work with The Nora Project! Not only did the members of Ability and AbbVie apply for and receive substantial financial support from The AbbVie Foundation for our organization, they also volunteered their time during this extremely urgent moment to provide critical resources to our teachers. Members of the ERG are creating video read alouds of the books in our Kindness Library and our Primer Pack programs, which our students and teachers will be able to use for remote learning purposes this fall. In all, more than 50 books will be recorded by Ability at AbbVie volunteers, and we estimate these resources will reach more than 120 teachers and the thousands of students in their classrooms. We also plan to make these videos available through our blog for families to use to supplement their children’s social and emotional learning at home during this challenging time.

The Nora Project relies on support from corporate leaders like AbbVie and The AbbVie Foundation to champion its work. The Ability at Abbvie ERG is easing our remote learning transition and The AbbVie Foundation grant will allow us to continue to provide our teachers with the training, support, teaching materials, and curriculum they need to provide the highest quality disability justice programming to their students. Teachers, and their students, need this programming now more than ever. The Nora Project is grateful to the AbbVie team for making this work a priority. If your company would like to get involved, please contact Lauren at lauren@thenoraproject.ngo.