Happy holidays from Cisco Meraki! As we start to prepare for the hustle and bustle that accompany this festive season, we’re proud of our employees that took time to give back to the San Francisco community. Meraki Gives, our employee volunteer program, put on two events this month for employees based at headquarters.

To kick off December, a group of eighteen Merakians loaded up a fleet of cars with sandwich supplies, headed over to the St. Vincent de Paul Society in San Francisco, and prepared 200 packed lunches for the organization’s drop-in lunch program.

Our group made 140 turkey sandwiches. After running out of bread, the team got creative and made a gluten-free option with tasty turkey and cheese wraps. Everything looked delicious, if we do say so ourselves, and it took quite a bit of willpower to make sure none of the meals ended up in our own stomachs. The sandwiches were then packaged with a pickle, clementine, and bottle of water.

After a few hours of teamwork and multiple sandwich assembly lines, the Meraki group headed up to the society’s main room and passed out lunches to people dropping in. A direct quote: “These sandwiches are the bomb! Thank you!” Thank you, St. Vincent, for letting us participate in this impactful program.

Later in the month, an in-house PB&J and holiday card-making event helped spread the holiday cheer even further. Over the course of four hours, Meraki employees from every department dropped by our cafeteria to make sandwiches for local SF organizations fighting hunger. By the end of the day, we had over 555 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches packaged and picked up by Food Runners, the amazing group that picks up extra lunch from Meraki every day.

Merakians also showed off their creative flair by making dozens of holiday cards to be sent to the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Keep up the great work Merakians! We can’t wait to see what we achieve in 2016.