PRO­JECTS

Venu­slauf char­ity event (2022)

Every year in Septem­ber it is time again for “Venu­slauf” – a char­ity event to raise funds for the fight against can­cer. In 2022, more than 2,600 par­ti­cipants from 28 coun­tries joined and covered a total of 31,101 kilo­metres. The dis­tance has been con­ver­ted into dona­tions from the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION to des­ig­nated can­cer char­it­ies world­wide.

CEO Slee­p­out (2022)

The Vin­nies CEO Slee­p­out is a one-night event on one of the longest and cold­est nights of the year in Aus­tralia. Hun­dreds of lead­ers in busi­ness, com­munity and gov­ern­ment sleep out­doors to sup­port home­less people in Aus­tralia or those at risk of home­less­ness. For the first time, KAEFER col­leagues were there, too!
Vic­tor Bo­gos, Man­aging Dir­ector of KAEFER In­teg­rated Ser­vices, and Trent Northover, Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­ficer, joined forces to raise funds for these people. This ini­ti­at­ive was also sup­por­ted by the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION who provided fin­an­cial sup­port.

KAEFER Run­ning Team (2022)

In March and April, the KAE­FEER Run­ning Team in Bre­men took part in the Winter Run Series cov­er­ing a total of 170 km. For every kilo­metre, KAEFER donated EUR 1 to the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION!

Ukraine dona­tion cam­paign (2022)

In re­sponse to the hu­man­it­arian crisis in Ukraine, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION or­gan­ised an emer­gency fun­drais­ing cam­paign to sup­port dis­placed people from across the coun­try and re­gion. Thanks to the amaz­ing con­tri­bu­tion of KAEFER col­leagues world­wide, a large sum was sent to the UN­HCR (UN Refugee Agency) who work with the au­thor­it­ies in Ukraine and neigh­bour­ing coun­tries to help or­gan­ise emer­gency re­lief items and shel­ter to people forced to flee. Ad­di­tion­ally, funds were also donated to the SOS Chil­dren’s Vil­lages to as­sist in tak­ing care of chil­dren in need in the Ukraine.

Help for the city of Mi­nas Gerais (2022)

In early Janu­ary, Mi­nas Gerais was again hit with very heavy rain­fall which caused severe dam­age and af­fected many KAEFER em­ploy­ees at RIP. Through co­oper­a­tion with the local gov­ern­ments in It­abira and It­abirito in Brazil, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION and RIP provided mat­tresses, wa­ter, food bas­kets as well as gen­eral as­sist­ance to fam­il­ies which were af­fected.

“Böller­frei” ini­ti­at­ive (2021)

The KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted the ‘Böller­frei’ ini­ti­at­ive from the Deutsche Um­welth­ilfe (En­vir­on­mental Ac­tion Ger­many) which aimed to min­im­ise the use of fire­crack­ers es­pe­cially on New Years Eve. The pur­pose of the cam­paign is to re­duce the side ef­fects of the ex­plos­ives on the health of com­munit­ies, an­im­als and on the en­vir­on­ment.

Venu­slauf (2021)

From 17^th to 19^th Septem­ber KAEFER col­leagues world­wide joined this vir­tual char­ity event by run­ning, walk­ing, skat­ing, swim­ming or cyc­ling for the good cause! In do­ing so, we raised money for des­ig­nated can­cer char­it­ies in Canada, Ger­many, France, UK & Ire­land and Sweden.

Flood­ing in Ger­many (2021)

In re­sponse to the severe flood­ing in Ger­many in July 2021, KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted Ak­tion Deutsch­land Hilft e.V., an al­li­ance of Ger­man aid or­gan­isa­tions and ini­ti­ated a fun­drais­ing cam­paign to sup­port people in need.

In­sect garden in Bre­men (2021)

KAEFER FOUND­A­TION is de­lighted to sup­port BUND e.V. in cre­at­ing an 800 m² in­sect garden in the city of Bre­men as a place to meet and learn. The aim is to raise aware­ness about pre­serving nat­ive biod­iversity and un­der­stand­ing the role of in­sects in eco­sys­tems.

World En­vir­on­ment Day (2021)

In line with this year’s theme “Re­ima­gine, re­cre­ate, re­store our planet”, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION in­vited all KAEFER col­leagues to sub­mit ini­ti­at­ives and pro­jects ad­dress­ing these top­ics. As a res­ult. very di­verse and in­ter­est­ing ideas have been handed in which are presen­ted here. Based on these, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION will sup­port three non-profit or­gan­isa­tions in the fol­low­ing sec­tors: Biod­iversity, Re­cyc­ling and Waste Col­lec­tion & Clean­ing.

Emer­gency fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for stu­dents (2021)

Bre­men wel­comes more than 5,000 in­ter­na­tional stu­dents every year. Many of them live at the lower in­come limit as they usu­ally do not re­ceive any fin­an­cial sup­port from their fam­il­ies, but work along the way. They can quickly find them­selves in fin­an­cial dis­tress through no fault of their own, es­pe­cially in these dif­fi­cult times of a pan­demic. There­fore, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION de­cided to sup­port XENOS e.V., a char­it­able or­gan­isa­tion that helps those stu­dents in need with the aim to en­able them to com­plete their stud­ies quickly and suc­cess­fully.

Floods in Brazil (2021)

In Feb­ru­ary, the area around Santa Maria de It­abira in Mi­nas Gerais, Brazil was severely af­fected by flood­ings and land­slides caused by heavy rain­fall. Sup­por­ted by the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION, 58 Brazilian col­leagues teamed up to dis­trib­ute drink­ing wa­ter, stoves and wash­ing ma­chines to local fam­il­ies in need.

Ful­filling Christ­mas wishes (2020)

In 2020, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted the WK Weih­nacht­shilfe, an ini­ti­at­ive in Bre­men, Ger­many that aims to ful­fill Christ­mas wishes of chil­dren from fam­il­ies that are fa­cing fin­an­cially dif­fi­cult times. Thanks to the dona­tion from the found­a­tion as well as from other gen­er­ous donors, the or­gan­iz­a­tion was able to make all wishes come true.

Christ­mas cal­en­dar for the good cause

In Decem­ber, KAE­FER’s Headquar­ters in Bre­men again turn into a gi­ant ad­vent cal­en­dar. Each day, a local char­ity re­ceives a dona­tion by the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION in or­der to sup­port their ef­forts and work. The full list of or­gan­isa­tions that are part of this year’s cal­en­dar can be found on our LinkedIn page.

Sup­port­ing char­it­ies in the UK & Ire­land (2020)

On the oc­ca­sion of “giv­ing Tues­day”, KAEFER in the UK & Ire­land and the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted 12 char­it­ies in Decem­ber 2020. Among oth­ers, the Ir­ish Can­cer So­ci­ety, the Down’s Syn­drome As­so­ci­ation and Mind (sup­port­ing people’s men­tal health) all re­ceived dona­tions.

World AIDS Day (since 2010)

Each year, KAEFER shows its sup­port for World AIDS Day on 1 Decem­ber. Stigma and dis­crim­in­a­tion to­wards people liv­ing with HIV or suf­fer­ing from AIDS is still a strong real­ity. We at KAEFER com­mit a policy of zero dis­crim­in­a­tion. There­fore, we want to take the op­por­tun­ity dur­ing World AIDS Day to re­mind every­one at KAEFER that we should fight pre­ju­dice!

“Venu­slauf” goes global (2020)

Walk­ing, run­ning and bik­ing the ex­tra mile. On 20 Septem­ber 2020, hun­dreds of KAEFER em­ploy­ees around the world joined the so-called “Venu­slauf”, a char­ity run rais­ing funds in the fight against can­cer. On our own, but close to­gether, fant­astic 11,971 km were covered res­ult­ing in dona­tions totalling about 20,000 EUR for dif­fer­ent can­cer char­it­ies around the world.

Donat­ing food bas­kets in Brazil (2020)

In or­der to help people in need, es­pe­cially due to the im­pacts of COVID-19, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted the ini­ti­at­ive of RIP Ser­viços In­dus­tri­ais in Brazil to donate food bas­kets in Septem­ber 2020. In total, 3,000 of these boxes were dis­trib­uted to 30 dif­fer­ent char­it­ies in 10 fed­eral states with the aim to min­im­ise hun­ger within the com­munit­ies.

Bremer Suppen­en­gel – Part 2 (2020)

Dur­ing the co­oper­a­tion with the “Bremer Suppen­en­gel” mid 2020, it turned out that at in their new loc­a­tion, some re­quired kit­chen equip­ment was still miss­ing. The KAEFER FOUND­A­TION was more than happy to fin­ance these ab­so­lutely ne­ces­sary small pro­fes­sional kit­chen aids. The new bread slicer, kit­chen scale as well as the ve­get­able slicer were very well re­ceived as they save a lot of time when pre­par­ing food for the people in need. Dur­ing their visit on site, the rep­res­ent­at­ives of the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION were happy to see that these devices were already widely used in the day-to-day activ­it­ies of the “Bremer Suppen­en­gel”.

Bremer Suppen­en­gel – Part 1 (2020)

In the second quarter 2020 the Corona lock­down had an im­pact on some sites of KAEFER In­dus­trie GmbH in Bre­men, leav­ing a trans­porter stand­ing un­used in the com­pany yard. The col­leagues had the idea of mak­ing the trans­porter avail­able to a local non-profit or­gan­isa­tion. The idea was rap­idly put into ac­tion by the ap­pren­tices of the Cor­por­ate Re­spons­ib­il­ity and Com­mu­nic­a­tion de­part­ment. An as­so­ci­ation was quickly found: the “Bremer Suppen­en­gel”. The ap­pren­tices star­tet us­ing the trans­porter to col­lect food from vari­ous traders in Bre­men and driv­ing them to the Bre­men cent­ral sta­tion, where the “Bremer Suppen­en­gel” are based. There the food and dona­tions are pre­pared, sor­ted and then dis­trib­uted to people in need. It was a great ex­per­i­ence for our ap­pren­tices to be able to sup­port this good cause in a con­crete and tan­gible way.

Tree­dom (2020)

The KAEFER FOUND­A­TION forest is an­other proof of our com­mit­ment to en­vir­on­men­tal and cli­mate pro­tec­tion. The first dona­tions were col­lec­ted through an in­ternal KAEFER flea mar­ket for a good cause. This took place at the be­gin­ning of 2020 and offered KAEFER em­ploy­ees in Bre­men the op­por­tun­ity to pur­chase old pro­mo­tional ma­ter­i­als and product samples in re­turn for a dona­tion. With the raised money 24 ca­cao trees were planted in Camerun to sup­port local farm­ers.

Learn more on the Treedom website

Ger­man Bone Mar­row Donor Cen­ter re­gis­tra­tion event in Bre­men (2019)

In Novem­ber 2019 the Deutsche Knochen­mark Spend­er­d­atei (DKMS) or Ger­man Bone Mar­row Donor Cen­ter re­gis­tra­tion event sup­por­ted by the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION took place in the HQ and branch of­fice in Bre­men. It was a great suc­cess – 56 col­leagues have re­gistered as po­ten­tial stem cell donors.

Ger­man Mari­time Search and Res­cue As­so­ci­ation (2018)

The Deutsche Gesell­schaft zur Ret­tung Schiff­brü­chi­ger (DG­zRS) or Ger­man Mari­time Search and Res­cue As­so­ci­ation, is one of the most mod­ern sea res­cue ser­vices in the world. Their work is fin­anced ex­clus­ively through dona­tions and vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tions. As a search and res­cue (SAR) ser­vice, they are on call around the clock in the North Sea and Baltic Sea in all kinds of weather – with a fleet of 60 SAR cruis­ers and boats. As part of KAE­FER’s cen­ten­ary cel­eb­ra­tions, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted this Or­gan­isa­tion.

Bremer Krebsgesell­schaft e.V. (2018)

The Bremer Krebsgesell­schaft e.V. is a can­cer so­ci­ety in Bre­men that pro­motes the im­prove­ment of care and re­hab­il­it­a­tion for people suf­fer­ing from can­cer. Be­ing part of the Ger­man Can­cer So­ci­ety, the or­gan­isa­tion of­fers courses, sem­inars, coun­selling and self-aid groups for pa­tients and their re­l­at­ives. Fur­ther­more, train­ing ses­sions for the pro­fes­sional audi­ence are also avail­able. As part of KAE­FER’s cen­ten­ary cel­eb­ra­tions, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted this Or­gan­isa­tion.

Löwen­herz Chil­dren’s and Youth Hos­pice (2018)

The Löwen­herz Chil­dren’s and Youth Hos­pice ac­com­mod­ates chil­dren, ad­oles­cents and young adults suf­fer­ing from in­cur­able and deadly dis­eases that can­not be cured by state of the art med­ical treat­ment. Ap­prox­im­ately 250 fam­il­ies can visit the hos­pice every year. The Löwen­herz am­bu­lant chil­dren’s hos­pice ser­vice in Bre­men and Braun­sch­weig sup­ports chil­dren with fatal dis­eases and their fam­il­ies. As part of KAE­FER’s cen­ten­ary cel­eb­ra­tions, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION sup­por­ted this or­gan­isa­tion.

Floods in Ker­ala (2018)

In July 2018, un­usu­ally heavy rain­fall led to severe floods and land­slides in Ker­ala in the south of In­dia. It was the worst flood­ing that oc­curred in this area in the last 100 years. Ac­cord­ing to the local gov­ern­ment, one-sixth of the over 33 mil­lion Ker­ala in­hab­it­ants had been dir­ec­tly af­fec­ted. In the Middle East more than 2,000 people from Ker­ala are em­ployed at KAEFER. In or­der to help those in need, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION as well as a local KAEFER char­ity fund en­abled im­me­di­ate fin­an­cial sup­port to the af­fec­ted KAEFER em­ploy­ees.

Foot­ball with Refugees (since 2017)

Do­ing sports in a team can gather people to­gether – no mat­ter from which coun­try, cul­tural or so­cial back­ground. Sup­por­ted by KAEFER col­leagues from Bre­men, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION is bring­ing people to­gether through foot­ball. Since Feb­ru­ary 2017, a group of refugees that is su­per­vised by a local youth wel­fare or­gan­isa­tion has the op­por­tun­ity to do sports to­gether with KAEFER People.

Sup­port­ing Refugees (since 2016)

Dur­ing the last years a large num­ber of people de­cided to leave their coun­tries due to civil wars, eco­nomic crisis and ter­ror­ism. Many of them came to Ger­many. Sup­por­ted by KAEFER em­loy­ees, the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION was able for in­stance to donate much needed socks and paint­ing ma­ter­i­als for chil­dren to an emer­gency shel­ter. Moreover, sports cloth­ing, school ma­ter­i­als and Christ­mas presents have been donated to a local youth wel­fare or­gan­isa­tion that takes care of nearly 40 un­ac­com­pan­ied minors from dif­fer­ent coun­tries.

CARE Refugee Aid (2015)

CARE (Co­oper­at­ive for As­sist­ance and Re­lief Every­where) is a lead­ing hu­man­it­arian or­gan­isa­tion fight­ing global poverty, which is cur­rently work­ing to help refugees. CARE-pack­ages have been dis­trib­uted to those in need since the end of the Second World War and a simple bar of chocol­ate, which has since be­come a sym­bol of the CARE-pack­age. In 2015, the an­nual Christ­mas gifts to KAEFER em­ploy­ees in Bre­men con­tained a small CARE-pack­age in­clud­ing the sym­bolic bar of chocol­ate and a dona­tion was made by the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION in or­der to sup­port their refugee aid Pro­jects.

Nepal Earth­quake Re­lief (2015)

Over 200 of our Nepalese col­leagues were dir­ec­tly af­fec­ted by the 7.8 and 7.3 earth­quakes which hit Nepal in April 2015. The im­me­di­ate ac­tion taken in­cluded free calls to fam­il­ies in Nepal and cov­er­ing the cost of plane tick­ets for em­ploy­ees with ur­gent cases. Fin­an­cial sup­port was also dis­trib­uted to 184 se­lec­ted em­ploy­ees. With the as­sist­ance of Prayas Nepal, a local non-profit or­gan­isa­tion, a KAEFER team helped to build 21 shel­ters in Sindhupal­chowk, fol­lowed by enough shel­ters to house 128 fam­il­ies in the Ramech­hap dis­trict.

Sci­pio (2014)

The Sci­pio team, short for Sci­entific Puri­fic­a­tion In­dic­ator, con­sists of five elec­trical en­gin­eers from the Uni­versity of Bre­men, Ger­many, who have in­ven­ted an in­nov­at­ive tool that is cap­able of de­term­in­ing if wa­ter is drink­able or not, when placed in a PVC bottle of wa­ter un­der dir­ect equat­orial sun­light. The fin­an­cial sup­port by the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION helped the stu­dents, to take part in CO­SIMA 2014 (Com­pet­i­tion of Stu­dents in Mi­crosys­tems Ap­plic­a­tion) in Mu­nich and 2015 at In­ter­na­tional Con­test of Ap­plic­a­tions in Nano-Mi­cro Tech­no­lo­gies (iCan) held in An­chor­age, Alaska – win­ning first place both times.

Char­ity Post­cards (since 2010)

Entries of the bi­an­nual KAEFER In­ter­na­tional Photo Com­pet­i­tion are used to pro­duce post­cards that are sold in­tern­ally, rais­ing funds for the KAEFER FOUND­A­TION. Among other loc­a­tions, they are avail­able at the Headquar­ters re­cep­tion in Ger­many.