How Etsy is celebrating community in their office in Dublin

During July, we celebrated Community month at Etsy and what better way to celebrate community than to learn about how we could get involved in our own. We decided to invite the lovely folks at ChangeX along to our office to chat about some of these ways and we turned our lunch break into a ChangeX Meetup.

fb763f454a11aee6c78bee808c92c3483ebfb7ca_img_2542

I don’t know about you but when it comes to dedicating some of my spare time, the hardest part is knowing where to start! ChangeX is the perfect starting point for anybody who wants to get involved and donate some of their time but needs a little help to pick the right project for them. ChangeX really grabbed my attention on a personal level as I work as the Office Coordinator here at Etsy Ireland and volunteering is already a huge part of the culture at the office.

It can be difficult to motivate and coordinate a group when it comes to volunteering as we all have different interests and skill sets. Sometimes your heart is just not with a particular project. My favourite thing about ChangeX is that there is a project to suit everybody.

As an office, some of the ideas really resonated with us. The Slow Food ethos is very similar to how we select our vendors here at Etsy and something I think we could definitely work alongside. As a company we work very hard at choosing local vendors who share a similar ethos to ourselves. We have worked with current vendors to cut down on the amount of containers and plastic used and reducing waste from our office lunches is a huge priority. We place a huge emphasis on locally sourced ingredients and we try to be as healthy and nutritious as possible…even though we always find an excuse to have cake!

My attention was also grabbed by the Fighting Words initiative, which is all about cultivating creativity in kids, particularly through writing. I’ve always liked writing and working with kids so to find an organisation that combines the two so well is ideal!

As part of moving into our new office here in Dublin 1, we wanted to spruce up our outdoor spaces and make it a little bit more pleasant for the few days of summer that we get here in Ireland. We have planned to start our own vegetable patch and we will attempt to grow our own vegetables – eek! This is the perfect project to run as part of aGIY group. We also hope to have a lavender patch with some seating for people to just relax.

Our main goal is to make the outdoor spaces feel part of the office. We want to make it more accessible, comfortable and of course visibly pleasing. It’s also a really nice project for everybody to get involved in as everyone can muck in and get their hands dirty… literally!

I think these days when it comes to charity work, a lot of emphasis is placed on money donations and not enough on donating our time within our own organisations. ChangeX is changing this and it’s very exciting!

If you’d like to host a ChangeX meetup in your community or office, just register your interest. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *