Virtual Inc Employees Pick Up Trash Around Reston Offices For Earth Day Community Service

RESTON, VA —As part of Earth Day last week, employees from Virtual, Inc. picked up trash and helped to beautify the area surrounding their offices at 11130 Sunrise Valley Drive in Reston.

"As a company, we're asking our employees to do 2,022 hours of community service during 2022," said Virtual CEO Andy Freed. "We really do believe as a company on making a mark on our world and that's our way to do it."

Virtual is a professional services firm that works with associations and technology standards groups that are forming, growing and changing, according Freed. Headquartered just outside of Boston, the company has around 200 employees at its Reston offices.

Freed came up with the idea to have Virtual's employees take part in clean-up activities on Earth Day when he was jogging near the company's Boston offices.

"Just looking around and saying, 'We can do better than this. I can't run past this trash everyday. What can we do?'" he said. "We've been able to organize that and just keep the world around us a little bit better."

Organizing an activity around a special event like Earth Day also makes it easier for Virtual's employees to participate.

"Many people want to help, but they don't know how to help, and this gave them an easy mechanism and construct to do so," Freed said.

Over the years, Virtual has participated in a number of initiatives to help the community at large, including building houses for Habitat for Humanity and supporting the Jimmy Fund in Boston.

"Last month, we raised several thousand dollars for Ukraine relief," Freed said. "There's a lot we can do. In my mind, that's part of the responsibility of the company to do things like that."

In addition to supporting local initiatives, participating in community service also benefits the company and its employees.

"It's been very positive for our employees, in part, because the employees we want to attract and the employees that we want to be part of the organization are employees that are going to see this and be excited by that," Freed said. "So, we want people that are going to see this and say, 'This is the kind of company that I want to be a part of."