Tim Cook, Apple employees volunteer at San Jose elementary school for MLK Day
Apple CEO Tim Cook joined hundreds of Apple employees in honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday by volunteering time in a renovation effort at Santee Elementary School in San Jose, Calif.
Cook shared two pictures of the Santee Elementary event in a Twitter post. In one photo, Cook is seen refurbishing a wooden installation with a fellow Apple worker, while the other shows a group of students ready to paint campus buildings. Monday was a no school day for Santee.
"Proud to volunteer beside hundreds of Apple employees honoring #MLKDay at ConnectED partner Santee Elementary," the tweet reads.
President Barack Obama's ConnectED initiative, a joint effort involving the Federal Communications Commission and multiple corporations, seeks to provide high-speed Internet access to 99 percent of America's students by 2018. Apple is on the list of participating companies, along with Microsoft, Sprint, and Verizon, among others.
Apple pledged $100 million to the ConnectED program in 2014. Santee Elementary is one of 114 schools in 29 states that was given iPads for student use, while faculty received both MacBooks and iPads. The program also allots one Apple TV per classroom for in-class activities, as well as software serving educational and professional development.
Cook shared two pictures of the Santee Elementary event in a Twitter post. In one photo, Cook is seen refurbishing a wooden installation with a fellow Apple worker, while the other shows a group of students ready to paint campus buildings. Monday was a no school day for Santee.
"Proud to volunteer beside hundreds of Apple employees honoring #MLKDay at ConnectED partner Santee Elementary," the tweet reads.
President Barack Obama's ConnectED initiative, a joint effort involving the Federal Communications Commission and multiple corporations, seeks to provide high-speed Internet access to 99 percent of America's students by 2018. Apple is on the list of participating companies, along with Microsoft, Sprint, and Verizon, among others.
Apple pledged $100 million to the ConnectED program in 2014. Santee Elementary is one of 114 schools in 29 states that was given iPads for student use, while faculty received both MacBooks and iPads. The program also allots one Apple TV per classroom for in-class activities, as well as software serving educational and professional development.
Comments
The community should be grateful to Cook and the Apple employees that took part in this. It might also temper your remarks to remind you that Cook is one of the wealthy CEOs who have pledged nearly all their fortunes to charitable causes.
And how did YOU exactly serve YOUR community, today?
When you set out to change the world, you should look first to changing yourself.
What did you do for others less fortunate or discriminated against today?
On the other hand; I still stand that this has little to do with MLK and what he fought for.
Although this is a nice gesture, the reality of helping school kids or a community in need is negligible. Apple is capable of so much more.
MLK fought for equal rights and equal opportunity for all americans, which is precisely what Obama's ConnectEd program wants to do for school-aged children. With the help of the $100 million in products Apple donated, it will level the playing field for some americans in the critical early childhood development stage.
Apple have other initiatives not mentioned in this article that MLK would also be proud to see and support were it not for his most untimely death. I would argue that by having their CEO participate in the day's activities, Apple is setting a good example for other companies who are also capable of doing so much more.
Tim Cook championing the giving of a single day's pay to the school could have demonstrated pay disparity in a productive manner.
One single day of Tim's income could hire 100 guys for the day, and pay for their tools and all the resources required to build whatever was needed and desired.
With money left over for pizza and beers for everyone afterwords.
$100 million isn't tokenism. While I think Apple/Cook needs to do more in terms of diversity, they have contributed a great deal.