During a pandemic year, Bendix and its employees continued community involvement activities through 2020, emphasizing both corporate giving and employee volunteering activities.

Corporate and employee donations for the year totaled more than $850,000, including $427,000 in grants awarded by Knorr-Bremse Global Care, and Knorr-Bremse Global Care North America Inc. Another $430,000 in funding came from Bendix and Bendix employees to support numerous nonprofit organizations and community initiatives across North America, in the form of grants, donations, and sponsorships.

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems is the North American leader in the development and manufacture of active safety, air management, and braking solutions for commercial vehicles. Bendix’s parent company, the Munich, Germany-based Knorr-Bremse, is the global leader for braking systems and a leading supplier of other safety-critical rail and commercial vehicle systems.

“2020 may have brought new challenges when it came to community service efforts, but challenging times bring out the best in people, and that was certainly evident across the Bendix organization,” said Maria Gutierrez, Bendix director of corporate responsibility and sustainability. “Our in-person volunteering hours were understandably down in 2020, as most of those events and opportunities were canceled to protect the health and safety of everyone involved. But we maintained our commitment to supporting our communities despite the pandemic and its economic impacts.”

Gutierrez continued, “In many instances where we had previously provided volunteers, but could not in 2020, we were still able to offer sponsorships and donations in lieu of our employees’ time. In fact, throughout the year we actually increased our core giving to help support those in need. We also evolved our programs to offer more virtual opportunities for employees to get engaged from the comfort of their homes and still positively impact our communities.”