Deere employees increase volunteer hours by more than 50 percent

In 2016 employees of Deere & Co., based in Moline, Ill., increased by more than 50 percent the number of volunteer hours they recorded in service to community organizations worldwide, totaling nearly 158,000 hours in the year compared to approximately 104,500 in 2015.

During the year, the company launched its Serving Our Communities initiative, in which 5,300 employees at 40 Deere locations around the world organized volunteer projects to benefit their local cities and towns. This initiative alone accounted for more than 17,000 volunteer hours.

Projects included packaging meals and collecting cans of food for local food banks, planting gardens at local schools, packing backpacks with school supplies for at-risk children, and helping farmers in developing countries be more productive. Employees at other locations built houses through Habitat for Humanity, renovated schools, and picked up litter along a beach.

In 2016 John Deere was named as one of America's Top 100 Corporate Citizens by Forbes magazine and the nonprofit organization Just Capital.