ATLANTA, Oct. 31, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Employees of Cbeyond Inc. (Nasdaq:CBEY), the technology ally to more than 60,000 small and mid-sized businesses, volunteered over 3800 hours on behalf of 41 organizations nationwide during the company's second annual Week of Service, held Oct 1 - 6, 2012. The event, which serves as the flagship annual effort of Cbeyond Community Connections, the company's community involvement program, encouraged employees in 15 U.S. cities to donate their time and talent through skill-based, onsite, off-site, virtual and/or family-based volunteer projects. Working closely with local communities, Cbeyond employees participated in a record 59 projects nationwide, based on community needs and employee interests.
While some Cbeyond teams participated in various projects at local food banks, parks, youth centers, homeless shelters and animal shelters, others shared the company's core business and technology expertise by consulting with local community organizations on how to improve internal efficiencies. Such efforts included Cbeyond employees developing a marketing and social media plan to support fundraising efforts for an Atlanta-based homeless shelter, and performing IT maintenance, support and education to local non-profits.
Cbeyond is recognized for its corporate culture which emphasizes a passion for service, for both customers and communities.
"Improving the communities in which we live and work plays a vital role in the culture and character of Cbeyond," said Jim Geiger, founder, chairman and CEO at Cbeyond. "Expanding our annual Week of Service in passion led yet creative, diverse and flexible ways helped us engage more employees and deliver greater impact in our nationwide community involvement efforts."
To drive participation Cbeyond offered community involvement opportunities at its offices, such as "packaging parties" to assemble personal care items for homeless shelters and overseas troops, and virtual volunteer projects that allowed employees to share their professional skills with nonprofits via online resources. Employee family members were also invited to join the effort through several "family-friendly" projects which concluded that week.
Cbeyond offers a diverse array of community involvement initiatives throughout the year in each of the 14 markets it serves (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC) plus Louisville, where its data center is located. The company will also launch its Season of Giving campaign in late October to offer holiday-focused service opportunities for employees.
To date, Cbeyond employees have contributed more than 62,000 hours (or 31 man years) of volunteer service since the company's founding in 1999. In 2012, Cbeyond was recognized for its commitment to community involvement with a fourth gold-level U.S. President's Volunteer Service award, along with Points of Light's 2012 Corporate Engagement Award of Excellence.
To learn more about Cbeyond's Community Connections Program, and commitment to community involvement, click here. To view pictures and videos of volunteers in action visit https://www.facebook.com/Cbeyondinc or for a social media version of this press release, click here.
About Cbeyond
Cbeyond, Inc. (Nasdaq:CBEY) is the technology ally for small and mid-sized business. Our private, proactively-managed IP network connects customers to voice, data and enterprise applications hosted in our award-winning cloud data centers. Since 1999, Cbeyond has served the unmet needs of businesses through technology and service innovation. We were the first company to build an all-IP network specifically for small businesses and among the few to offer consultative sales and service professionals onsite. Today, our expanded portfolio helps customers reduce the burden of outlaying capital and manpower to manage infrastructure. Creating an exceptional customer experience is in our DNA. It's why more than a third of our 60,000+ customers come from referrals. For more information on Cbeyond, visit http://www.cbeyond.com and follow Cbeyond on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Cbeyondinc.