The Executives' Club of Chicago named Abbott the 2018 Corporate Citizen of the Year, an honor reflecting our company's commitment to building stronger communities around the world.

Abbott's core mission to help people live their best lives through better health also drives our philanthropic work. The Executives' Club of Chicago recognized us for the significant impact made by Abbott employees, both through hands-on volunteering and employee giving. In local communities across Chicago and the world, Abbott employees share their expertise, time, energy and donations to help their neighbors build better lives, every day.

This includes helping advance the missions of local educational, health and social service agencies and non-profit organizations in the Chicago area. Some examples of our local impact include:

• Abbott and its employees, together with the Abbott Fund, have teamed up with Feeding America and the Northern Illinois Food Bank for the Backpack program. The result: 77,495 backpacks containing more than 700,000 meals delivered to help provide nutrition to children and families in need over weekends and holidays.
• Through targeted small-group programs, hundreds of Abbott expert volunteers have inspired more than 1,300 children across Chicagoland to discover science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). And to date, 97 percent of participants in Abbott's high school STEM internship program are either studying or pursuing a career in STEM.
• Our employees lead the way when it comes to participating in employee giving programs. In 2017, 96 percent of Abbott's Chicago-area employees participated in the annual giving program, which is triple the average participation rate seen with typical corporate giving campaigns. Employees are motivated by the opportunity to have their funding gifts matched by corporate grants to select organizations – which allows them to amplify the impact they have on non-profits.

We're honored to receive this accolade from the Executives' Club of Chicago, and look forward to continuing to work side-by-side with our neighbors to help build better communities around the world.

Read more about Abbott's Global Citizenship.