As Mandela Day is customarily hosted in the middle of the European summer when many employees take their annual vacation, Aspen’s French-based team in Notre Dame de Bondeville (NDB) chose to participate in a range of different activities during the last quarter of 2014.

The selected organisations that Aspen NDB are planning to work alongside include Restos du cœur, Banque Alimentaire, the Lion's Club, Les blouses roses, Cardere, La Créa, Secours Populaire and Association des Paralysés de France (APF).

Secours Populaire is a non-profit making association that fights poverty and exclusion and also supports individuals and family’s needs with the likes of housing and healthcare.

Restos du cœur and Banque alimentaire focus on raising funds for destitute families and distributing food to the needy particularly during the winter months and in early spring.

The Aspen team will also be helping the Les blouses roses to decorate hospital units for patients over the Christmas season as well as APF who conduct various activities to assist some 300 handicapped individuals.

Later in the year, the Lion's Club engages is numerous community related initiatives and Aspen NDB will assist them in selling cut flowers to raise funds for a local hospital and to purchase medical equipment.

Employees have also committed to assist Cardere with their environmental cleaning and gardening initiatives while others will be clearing a natural park area alongside La Créa, an organization striving to preserve the environment.