Rebuilding Lives, One House at a Time

Rob Davis, corporate vice president and president of Baxter's Medical Products business, is among the senior executives at Baxter who participate in Habitat for Humanity projects with employees throughout the company.

Habitat for Humanity is a U.S.-based, non-profit, ecumenical Christian Housing Ministry that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness worldwide. Through volunteer labor and donations of cash and materials, Habitat builds and rehabilitates simple, affordable homes. Since its founding in 1976, the organization has helped build more than 400,000 houses and served more than 2 million people.

Baxter recognizes the connection between quality housing and health, and provides cash contributions and encourages employee volunteerism to support this important organization. Since 2006, Baxter employees have spent more than 19,000 hours building homes through Habitat. Most of the employee support has been centered on building homes in the United States, particularly near the company’s headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois, United States. Since 2003, Baxter has sponsored six Habitat homes in Lake County, Illinois, United States, and in 2010, the organization honored Baxter with its annual Corporate Sponsorship Award.

In 2007, employees in Canada, Costa Rica and India began partnering with local Habitat for Humanity affiliates, and since then, Baxter’s work with the organization has become even more global, to also include employees from Belgium, France, Ireland and Switzerland. In 2010, for example, more than a dozen Baxter employees in India helped to build a new home for a family in Bawana, New Delhi. Bawana, a resettlement colony that shelters the economically underprivileged, is home to 10,000 families, most of whom live in sub-standard housing and earn less than INR 6,500 (US $133) per month. Baxter India provided the raw materials needed to build the home and nearly 85 volunteer hours of labor to clean the area, and prepare the ground for and establish the foundation.

Despite the challenging work, the highlight for every Baxter Habitat for Humanity team is always the heartfelt gratitude from the new homeowners, said Akshay Nanda, finance director for Baxter India, who took part in the Bawana build.

"It was the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I have ever done in my life," Nanda said. "Intense labor under a harsh sun seemed like a miniscule contribution for the pride and gratitude we saw on the homeowner's face. It was the most enriching experience I could imagine."