Apart from what the Foundation is doing, how are Avery Dennison employees responding to the  crisis? 

Many employees are deeply concerned about the humanitarian impact. Our teams in EMENA have been particularly passionate.

We’re hearing about many different employee efforts, and more stories are coming in every day. 

For example, employees at an RBIS manufacturing plant in Romania, in an area that has welcomed some 400 refugees so far, donated food and other supplies to women and children living in a local high school dormitory. That team is now investigating which supplies are most urgently needed so that they can supply more. 

In Luxembourg, the company’s Rodange facility made a donation to local hospitals, which sent medical equipment to the Polish border. The atma.io team in Europe is providing cash and SIM cards for displaced families so they can connect with loved ones, and is planning a “matchmaking” website to connect refugees looking for housing and work. In Portugal, a team worked with our distributor and a customer to donate materials to decorate a semi-truck headed to Poland full of food, medicine, and other essential supplies donated by local firefighters.

Employees are also going to great lengths to help on their own, outside of efforts organized at work. Some are hosting refugees in their homes. One of our employees in the Netherlands told me today that his family had just welcomed a Ukrainian family—a mother and her two daughters, who’d spent 11 days on a harrowing journey through Ukraine, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. At certain points, they had to hide. This employee’s family is helping the kids enroll in school and helping the mom find a job. 

Other employees are driving to the border to transport Ukrainian residents to safety. Some are collecting and distributing food and supplies. One employee—I don’t know when she’s finding time to sleep— is helping refugees find jobs, persuaded her local science museum to offer free admission for Ukrainian families, and created training for host families on how to provide emotional support to refugees. In Germany, a colleague’s three children sold cakes and waffles in front of their house on a Sunday morning and raised 525 Euros, which they donated to the relief effort. And a number of employees are taking part in protests against the invasion. So there has been a significant outpouring of support of all kinds, and I expect there will be more. 

What’s next? What is your strategy for contributing to relief efforts as the war goes on? 

Like the rest of the world, we’re watching to see how the situation unfolds. This is like no other relief effort the Foundation has responded to. It’s different from a natural disaster. It’s different from the pandemic. We are fervently hoping for a swift return to peace and end to the suffering and displacement that are already taking place. How we might do our part to help in the future depends on how events develop, but I know that no matter what happens, our employees will lead with their values and their hearts as they have so far. They always do. 

Read more about Avery Dennison's response to the war in Ukraine.