Saks Insider

April is internationally recognized as Earth Month. To celebrate, Saks Serves, our employee-led volunteer program, partnered with our Sustainability team to provide opportunities for Saks team members to roll up their sleeves and support our communities through environmental preservation and conservation activities. Employees in New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Bangalore, India participated in local and virtual initiatives throughout the month, creating a positive impact on the communities where they live and work. Our Earth Month initiatives resulted in a combined total of 117 volunteer hours completed. Check out a recap of how our teams got involved in their local communities: . 

Spring cleaning in The Big Apple

Our New York-based employees partnered with NYC Parks and the City Parks Foundation, whose mission is to make parks vibrant centers of community for all New Yorkers through sports, art, community building and environmental education programs. Volunteers cleared 150 bags of debris from City Hall Park and readied the grounds for new spring growth by raking leaves, weeding, removing litter and mulching. 

Marking wildlife movement, virtually

Bangalore-based and remote U.S.-based employees worked with Goodera, a nonprofit organization committed to making social impact accessible to everyone. Goodera led our team through an interactive, virtual wildlife conservation project by guiding volunteers through live capture footage from motion-sensing cameras positioned across forests worldwide. Volunteers identified and tagged animals across a variety of locations, including Kenya, Costa Rica and New Mexico. This activity supports the Zoological Society of London by helping them further their conservation efforts in mapping the movements of species in order to gain a deeper understanding of the lives of animals and inform best practices for welfare.

Keeping up Shelby Park

The Tennessee Fulfillment Center partnered with Friends of Shelby Park to support the preservation of the park for the surrounding community to appreciate and enjoy. Volunteers participated in clean up activities including maintenance of the park’s attractions, and clearing invasive plants from a large area of Beech Grove Hill, which will allow native plants to thrive this spring. 

Clearing paths in Pottsville

Employees from our Pottsville Photo Studio volunteered at Schuylkill River Trail, a 120-mile, multi-use path connecting multiple counties in the area. Volunteers helped maintain areas of the trail without directly disturbing the natural spaces around them by trimming back overgrown vegetation, removing invasive species, picking up trash, and fixing and mitigating eroded parts of the trail. After cleaning about ¾ of a mile of trail, volunteers spent time learning about invasive species, native plants and the rich history of the area. 

Through initiatives like Saks Serves, we are committed to our responsibility to our customers and employees to make a positive impact on our planet and our communities.