A record total of 8,577 insurance industry volunteers provided more than 25,000 hours of service to community nonprofits across the United States during the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s (IICF) Week of Giving in October.

The efforts spanned 76 cities across 30 states, IICF said, explaining that its annual Week of Giving—held this year from Oct. 10 through Oct. 17—brings insurance industry professionals together for a series of projects and events through which insurance industry volunteers can give back to the local communities in which they live and work.

Through the Week of Giving program, insurance industry volunteers have dedicated 218,722 hours to local nonprofits since 2001. Volunteer projects that IICF has supported include youth and children services, health and disease issues, women’s issues, elderly care, food service and donation, and disaster preparedness.

This year’s Week of Giving also carried a strong focus on early literacy programs for underserved youths. Seven early literacy events were hosted nationwide, which featured hands-on interaction with materials from IICF’s Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day, a free, online bilingual early literacy program produced in partnership with Sesame Workshop. IICF and industry volunteers led hundreds of children through interactive reading and writing activities during these events.

IICF also continued its #5forELI social media-focused fundraising campaign during the month of October, where individuals shared their stories of support for early literacy efforts—and direct donations to IICF’s Early Literacy Initiative—via use of the hashtag. All proceeds that resulted from this campaign and Week of Giving were donated to Sesame Workshop and the ELI program.

Source: IICF