Folks at Cisco don't "hijack" blood donation trucks unless there's a very good reason. If helping a colleague cope with the loss of her father and honoring his last wishes isn't a good reason, then we don't know what is.

One of the members of the Digital Strategy Enablement (DSE) team recently lost their father to leukemia. Instead of flowers at his service, her father asked that people donate blood to help others.

So the DSE team jumped into action, re-routing a Stanford Blood Center truck from another location and standing in line to donate at Building 8 on the San Jose, CA campus.

• 27 people attempted to donate (8 were denied due to recent travel, etc.)
• 22 units of blood were donated
• 3 people were able to give T5 double-red donations, which are extra special and earned them extra cookies and kudos

While enjoying a post-donation cookie, the DSE team spoke to another colleague from a different Cisco team whose wife also as cancer and is undergoing chemo treatment at Stanford. So the DSE team may be helping ANOTHER member of the Cisco family, as she may be a recipient of their donations, as well as other people in the community.

Giving back is so engrained in the culture at Cisco, that when employees volunteer or donate, Cisco will match their volunteer hours and donations to approved organizations. So in addition to the blood donations, the team was able to earn over$200 that will go to the Stanford Blood Center as well.

Thank you, DSE team, for proving once again that the idea of the "Cisco family" isn't a marketing slogan, it's just how we do things around here.

If you want to be a part of the Cisco family, you can view openings here.