Driven by the passion for sharing and fellowship, members of one of the biggest online expatriate community groups were joined by some of city’s leading hospitality and food chains in their ‘drive for good’ campaign last Saturday. 
Volunteers from InterNations, together with Nando’s, Marriott Marquis City Centre and Grand Hyatt, reached out to residents of a labour camp in Al Shahaniya in city’s outskirts with supplies of food and household items. 
In InterNations volunteers’ ‘3rd Drive for Good’ campaign, led by Doha ambassador Mark Thomson, more than 3,000 labour camp residents benefited from more than 2 tonnes of donated goods. The volunteers drove to the Al Shahaniya camp recently with the supplies and distributed them among the people there.
Nando’s provided 1,100 food parcels besides six water coolers and 100kg of dry fruit. While Marriott Marquis, the City Centre contributed 500 food parcels. The hotel’s General Manager Andreas Wisdorf himself drove the supplies to the camp with the caravan of InterNations volunteers. 
“There is nothing more beautiful than seeing people of all races, colours and creed unite and come together to do good for people who need it most; total strangers, yes but fellow human beings who deserve our care and compassion,” said Mark Thomson, the ambassador of InterNations in Doha.
More than 300 volunteers from the online community of people donated the food and household items. A majority of them dropped off the supplies at Thomson’s place from where they were transported to the camp while others joined the caravan to the camp and delivered in person.
Keeping up with its tradition of giving back to community in the holy month of Ramadan, Nando’s generously handed out bags filled with hygiene and food products to migrant workers at one of the largest labour camps.
The CSR initiative ‘Drive for Good’, organised by Thomson and his team besides the community members showcased the commitment to social responsibility to fellow members of wider society. It meant participating actively in lending a helping hand to the disadvantaged and the needy, says Thomson.
The donation packs included caps, t-shirts, slippers, toothbrushes, toothpastes, shaving razors and soap as well as biscuits, tea bags, noodles, sugar, instant drink powder and hot and cold water dispensers.
“Supporting social causes is a goal we strive to achieve on a frequent basis and one way to do this is giving back to society,” said Francois Rousseau, the Chief Operating Officer of Oryx Group for Food Services under which the Nando’s brand operates. The packs were handed out to migrant workers by the Nando’s employees alongwith InterNations volunteers. “The holy month of Ramadan calls for generosity and compassion and this year, we are proud that we could be a part of InterNations’ charity drive. We successfully delivered a large number of hygiene and food products in packages to migrant workers,” said Rousseau, adding they hope to continue contributing to a variety of important social causes in the years to come.
Nando’s, he added, has exerted dedicated efforts to support various causes in Qatar during the holy month over the past two years. They have been donating a percentage of their Ramadan meal sales to Reach Out to Asia (Rota), a member of Qatar Foundation.
In 2014, Nando’s raised and donated QR35,000 to Rota’s ‘My Education, My Hope’ campaign which aimed to provide quality education to those in need. 
Nando’s is actively involved in championing initiatives and various charity drives all year round. Their social responsibility campaigns run under the “Chicken with a Heart” umbrella, which includes several efforts and campaigns for Ramadan and various other causes like breast cancer awareness. 
On previous occasions, Nando’s has also collaborated with Qatar’s Dhreima Foundation, donated to Hope Qatar and to Qatar Cancer Society. Drive for Good was organised for the 3rd quarter running by InterNations and gave the opportunity to several other companies to participate and engage with the migrant worker community.
“These included The Grand Hyatt Hotel donating many boxes of clothing and food items, Marriott Marquis The City Centre who donated 500 packs of food items and we were also supported by Iloveqatar.com,” said Thomson.
On the previous such drives, he said they have been supported by the Kempinski Hotel, the W Hotel in association with RAF and the “amazing members” of InterNations network who put in a tremendous effort to help out, donate and promote this worthy cause, says the InterNations ambassador.