Over the years, BAE Systems and its employees have established a tradition of community support in the many locations in which BAE Systems operates across the nation.
Armament Systems supports surrounding communities by holding annual United Way campaigns at its work sites. The Minneapolis site alone has raised almost $1 million for the organization in the last three years, through both employee and corporate gifts.
Hundreds of employees participate each year in Caring Connection projects, visiting United Way-funded agencies and performing work ranging from cleaning shelving and freezers at a food shelf to building furniture for low-income families.
Armament Systems holds annual toy, food, and school supply drives to help needy families in the community, and quarterly in-plant blood drives are held for the Memorial Blood Center of the Twin Cities.
Armament Systems provides educational scholarships to 11 high schools in Minneapolis (Minnesota), Aberdeen (South Dakota) and Elgin (Oklahoma) to promote student interest in a technical degree at colleges and universities. The scholarship winners are selected by the high school staff based on a jointly developed set of attributes from BAE Systems and the high school. Winners of these scholarships receive their certificates acknowledging the scholarship at the high school awards ceremony in the Spring of each year. In general, the selected student must be in the top 5% of academic performance for math and science at their school and desire to take a technical subject for their college degree.
Armament System also provides donations to certain tax exempt charities and associations to support the needs of the local communities and the needs of military families around the world. Armament Systems celebrates the end of each calendar year with a major charitable fund drive for the United Way when employee giving is matched by company dollars that are authorized for charitable giving. Plus, BAE Systems has a Charity Challenge each year where business units plan and execute fund raising activities for a selected charity.
