Photo: L’Oreal USA’s 2013 For Women in Science fellow, Anisa Ismail, helps a student build a spaghetti bridge. © L’Oréal USA

L’Oréal USA yesterday announced the results of its annual Volunteer Day efforts across the country. As of last Friday, June 12, more than 2,700 L’Oréal USA employees from 14 facilities in Arkansas, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Washington participated in more than 132 service projects.

The day of service is part of L’Oréal’s global Citizen Day initiative, the company’s ongoing efforts to give back to its communities and customers around the world. The program was started by the New York office of L’Oréal USA in 2006 and rolled out across the U.S. and globally in 2010. Last year, more than 24,000 L’Oréal employees, from 61 countries volunteered on Citizen Day worldwide, and this year, over 3,700 L’Oréal USA employees will participate in service projects by the end of August.

Volunteer Day reinforces L’Oréal’s commitment to making positive contributions to both employees and consumers around the world,” said Frédéric Rozé, President & Chief Executive Officer of L’Oréal USA. “We’re proud to dedicate an entire day to corporate citizenship and inspire employees to give back to the communities where they live and work through projects grounded in L’Oréal’s passion for sustainability, science and beauty.

For the tenth year in a row, the company’s New York office partnered with New York Cares to create volunteer projects, including several focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM):

 Coding Workshop with PS 241 at the STEM Institute: Employees worked with students on a hands-on coding workshop to strengthen their engineering and technology skills. Students were exposed to computer science while working with their volunteer mentors to understand basic programming concepts.
 USA Rube Goldberg Inventors Challenge at PS 366: Employees taught middle school students a number of fundamental physics principles by creating Rube Goldberg Machines — contraptions made of everyday materials that are designed to accomplish a simple task through complex chain reactions.
 Spaghetti Bridge Building with MS 582: Employees helped middle school students from Brooklyn excel in science, technology, engineering, and math by constructing model bridges. This physics project provided students with the opportunity to learn about the principles of STEM in a realistic, hands-on problem solving manner.