When Durai Murugan Subba Reddy isn’t in Amtrak’s office working with the Digital Technology team, you can find him volunteering either with his Amtrak colleagues or his family. He spends much of his free time giving back. This includes leading group volunteer opportunities at Amtrak. He finds it important to show his kids the importance of engaging with their community.
Through Amtrak, Durai is involved in giving back efforts with the Capital Area Food Bank and DC Central Food. He found these opportunities through an initiative organized by a colleague. While there, Durai heard “people from other companies were coming on a regular basis to spend their time giving back to the community, once every two or three weeks, coming and packing food or supplies,” and found himself inspired by their dedication. He went to Amtrak’s Office of Community Engagement and learned how to coordinate his own groups and start more regular volunteering efforts.
Now, Durai regularly organizes a group of volunteers to support Capital Area Food Bank’s Demonstration Garden. The Demonstration Garden teaches community members how to grow nutritious food, and some of the produce they grow is given to the local community for free. To start, Durai organized a team of 10 volunteers. “They put on their gloves and focused on weeding and cleaning around the garden area”.
The most rewarding part of volunteering for Durai is first “getting to meet new Amtrak colleagues from different areas, and second, seeing a lot of people spending their time helping people they don’t even know.” This rewarding feeling comes often at Amtrak. In fact, Amtrak hosts friendly competitions to see who has the most volunteering hours and invites people to share stories of how they spend those hours. Durai appreciates this opportunity to showcase the company’s culture of giving back.
Outside of Amtrak, Durai volunteers with his family at a school in his community and at area temples. At the school, on Saturdays, he and his wife teach the classical, South Indian language, Tamil. His goal is to “pass the language to the future generation.” As a bonus, it’s helping his kids learn the Tamil language too! It’s a fun and fulfilling experience, and Durai enjoys “tell[ing] them stories in that language.” They also host speech competitions for the students to show off their Tamil skills.
At the temples he volunteers with, he offers support with whatever they need. Mainly, Durai can be found in the kitchen helping prepare food, cleaning, helping with festival logistics, and supporting ritual planning. Whatever they may need, Durai is always happy to pitch in.
If you are looking to become an active member of our community like Durai, but don’t know where to begin, explore our volunteer hub to find local organizations with volunteer opportunities. It’s easy to get started volunteering, and it can offer you the same fulfillment Durai finds in his volunteer efforts.