Employee Volunteers Spread Holiday Cheer and Foster Inclusivity

This holiday season, a team of passionate and innovative employees from GE Appliances, a Haier company, known as the "GE Appliances Elf-gineers," dedicated their time and engineering expertise to adapt more than 100 toys for local children with disabilities. The goal: to help ensure every child can experience the magic of play, regardless of their abilities.

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GE Appliances Elf-Gineers used their engineering expertise to reconfigure more than 100 toys to meet the unique needs of local kids. (Photo: GE Appliances, a Haier company)

For many children with disabilities, toys with buttons that light up, move, or play sounds can be difficult or impossible to use without assistance. Adapted toys—outfitted with special switches and features tailored to various abilities—give these children a chance to play independently. However, these customized toys are often expensive, making them out of reach for many families already facing other costs.

Upon discovering these challenges, the Elf-gineers—a team of mechanical and electrical engineers from GE Appliances—came together and transformed their air conditioning lab at the company’s Kentucky-based headquarters into a whimsical elf workshop, using their engineering expertise to reconfigure more than 100 toys to meet the unique needs of local kids.

“Our employees have the freedom to explore their passions at work and the “Elf-gineers” choice to use their skills to make a difference for kids in our community is just one way our culture comes to life,” said Rocki Rockingham, chief human resources officer at GE Appliances. “This initiative is a powerful example of how our core values of inclusion, innovation, and commitment to our community are lived daily. The same people designing and building innovative household appliances that simplify life are using their expertise and consumer-focused mindset to help create inclusive play experiences to make a difference for kids during the holiday season.”

The adapted toys are being distributed this month to several non-profits and schools in Louisville, including Jefferson County Public Schools, the Visually Impaired Preschool Services, and Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies.

This is the latest example of GE Appliances’ employees using their skills and passion to help others and join projects like the Access Kit, an inclusive tactile offering for blind and low vision appliance owners, and a collaboration with Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast that revolutionized milk donation tracking and measurement.

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About GE Appliances

At GE Appliances, a Haier company, we come together to make "good things, for life." We're creators, thinkers, and makers who believe that anything is possible and that there’s always a better way. We’re a company powered by our people, made stronger through our diversity—allowing us to grow closer than ever before to our users, anticipate their needs and enhance their lives.

We’ve been certified the last three years as a Great Place to Work™, named one of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women by Seramount, earned the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® award, received a perfect score five years’ running on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, and named one of the Top 100 Internship Programs by WayUp. Since 1907, we’ve built innovative, quality products that are trusted in half of all U.S. homes. We sell appliances under the Monogram®, Café™, GE Profile™, GE®, Haier, and Hotpoint brands. Our products include refrigerators, freezers, cooking products, dishwashers, washers, dryers, wine & beverage centers, air conditioners, small appliances, water filtration systems, and water heaters.

To learn more about our company, brands, Corporate Citizenship efforts, economic impact, and working for GE Appliances, visit geappliancesco.com

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