In the spirit of the holiday season, our friends at Dansko wanted to do something special for a few graduating students entering the medical field. So our Casual Lifestyle team reached out to Touro University Nevada, a private medical institution located here in Las Vegas, to find some much-deserving recent grads and donate some brand new Dansko scrubs and Dansko shoes as they embark on their new journey into the healthcare profession.  

Dansko and the Zappos team were able to give to 50 deserving medical students just in time for the holidays. With everything they do and have yet to do for the community, it’s great to be able to give thanks to these hard-working individuals!

What better way to spread holiday cheer to some underprivileged kids than with a brand new pair of Skechers? How about visiting them at school and letting them decorate their own pair of BOBS from Skechers shoes?

That’s exactly what 12 Zapponians did with the help of our friends at Skechers. The volunteers (some were even on their days off) visited some kids in Cynthia Cunningham Elementary School here in Las Vegas to brighten up their holiday season with some cool shoes! The kiddos also got some snacks right before they flexed their creative muscles by decorating their new pair of Skechers.

What a great way to show some holiday spirit—putting smiles on kids’ faces!

One of the best things about living in Las Vegas is beautiful Red Rock Canyon  right in our backyard. This past weekend, some of us LEAFers went on a hike and cleaned  up the trail along the way. The weather was perfect, the trail was empty, and we couldn't have asked for better company. One of our LEAFers, Amelia, even brought her two pups along for the day. We went back as far as we could before the trail got a little questionable, found our way down to the creek running partially alongside the trail, and enjoyed ourselves a nice little snack!  

Although this event may not be what you consider environmental stewardship, it still provided some important lessons about how to be more environmentally aware. Spending your time outdoors is much better for the environment by reducing the amount of electricity we use and carbon emissions we produce. We also learned how to respect the outdoors by cleaning up after our dogs, not spitting our seeds or shells onto the ground, and not to pick anything up that is native to the area.  Oh, and cigarettes are not biodegradable, (contrary to what some people may think!). All these things will help protect the beautiful outdoors. We were able to provide a small service to the land by picking up any waste we found along the way. Surprisingly, there wasn't much! But, we still accumulated a small amount of cigarette butts and pistachios shells.

L.E.A.F.'s next event will be hosted at Zappos, specifically for our Zappos employees, on April 17. It will be Zappos' first ever Earth Day event! We have partnered with KEEN in the past to observe Earth Day, but we have never celebrated it on campus before and we are super excited for it! Our main goal for Earth Day is to help spread environmental awareness at Zappos through demonstrations by local and non-local vendors who actively support eco-friendly behavior. If we could change the daily behaviors of just one of our employees by showing them how to recycle properly, helping them choose sustainable food choices, or telling them where to buy eco-friendly products, the event will be a success!

L.E.A.F. is planning to participate in a few other events in the upcoming months, such as: Plant a Tree for Arbor Day on April 27 at UNLV and the Solar Festival on June 21 at the Henderson Events Plaza. While these aren't L.E.A.F. sponsored events, we know how important it is for us to support our community along their sustainable paths!

Stay tuned for additional events and check out the L.E.A.F.  Facebook page!

Did you know that 2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene? We all know that without water, there is no life, but this is a daily reality for a large majority of the planet.

This is why the Zappos Family celebrated World Water Day on March 22^nd to raise money for one of our favorite charities: charity:water. We had a few challenges that employees participated in, all to raise awareness and money towards this great cause.  

At the end of the day, $1,690.75 was donated to charity:water! That’s enough money for 85 individuals to have access to clean drinking water!

Jason is an extraordinary leader in the Zappos Kentucky Family on the floor, as a Lead in the Picking Department, and after hours. While volunteering for the Zappos Packs for Kids: Backpack Buddy program February 27^th – March 2^nd, Jason not only gave his time, he also packed 100 bags of food and wrote 100 notes for children in need. The Backpack Buddy program was started by Dare to Care in 2004 as an effort to bring nutritious food to children on the weekends, when free and reduced-priced breakfasts and lunches are not available.  This year, the Zappos Kentucky Family teamed up to pack over 2,000 bags of food and draft over 2,000 notes to the children in our area.  These will be distributed in new, sturdy backpacks.

We asked Jason a couple of questions about this project that is near and dear to his heart:

What drew you most to helping out with the Zappos Packs for Kids Backpack Buddy program?

J:   It’s for the KIDS!  How can you not?!

What brought you to Zappos?

J: The culture!

 If you won $1,000,000 to be donated to charity, what organization would you donate to and why?

J: Any charity [that assists] kids. They can’t help themselves.

What is one thing you had as a child that you still have or use today?

J:  A baseball.

What are three words you would use to describe yourself?

J: Spontaneous, Humble, Motivated.

A few months ago, L.E.A.F. (Leading Environmental Awareness for the Future) was featured on the Zappos blogs when we hosted our first ever Zappos Recycles Day. Since then, L.E.A.F.’s been pretty busy trying to transform Zappos into a greener company!

L.E.A.F.’s mission is to effectively and efficiently reduce Zappos’ impact on the environment. We have already implemented a new recycling program to fit our employee’s needs; created a mug raffle to encourage use of reusable cups; and added green material to our library to help employees promote sustainability. We are planning an awesome Zappos Earth Day to spread awareness to our employees about how easy it is to make greener decisions daily. Also, we are currently working on a pretty extensive event calendar to show our community support.

L.E.A.F. is an employee-grown group led by Danielle and supported by Liz, Elyse and about 30 other Zapponians. The greatest part about our group members, whom we call LEAFERS, is that they find time to support L.E.A.F.’s initiatives alongside their full-time jobs because they truly care about help growing Zappos into a more environmentally friendly company. We’ve come a long way in about 8 months and plan to go even further!

Over the next few months, we plan to make some big changes and will be keeping everyone updated on what we’re up to, internally and out in the community! Stay tuned!

If you would like to contact L.E.A.F., please email leaf@zappos.com.

Yesterday was quite the exciting day here at Zappos HQ. Aside from a company-wide potluck for Thanksgiving (we’re STILL full from all the food), it was also Zappos Recycling Day!

A group of eco-minded Zapponians known as LEAF (Leading Environmental Awareness for the Future), got together to raise awareness about recycling and other ways we can all reduce our carbon footprint.

There was a can collecting competition, guest speakers, trivia, and a “Transform Your Trash Can into a Recycling Bin” decorating station to get everyone excited about being more eco friendly.

Does your workplace have a recycling program? Share your own recycling initiatives in the comments section below!

Our fantastic Zappos Bistro team recently catered a huge BBQ lunch for the Robert Gordon Retirement Home along with over 200 volunteers who came out to help renovate their community center.

Big thanks to everyone who did such an amazing job in giving back to our community!