On the one-year anniversary of AT&T Cares, a comprehensive and flexible volunteerism program for more than 270,000 employees, AT&T* is celebrating an impactful year with three prestigious national volunteerism awards and recognition for its commitment to education.

So far this year, through the community service impact of its employees and retirees, AT&T has received the following national recognition:

Most recently in June, AT&T was honored with the 2010 Corporate Engagement Award of Excellence from the Points of Light Institute, a national organization dedicated to advancing community service. The award recognizes extraordinary, effective volunteer programs that are helping to improve local communities.

In March, AT&T received the Ladies’ Home Journal “Do Good” Stamp in recognition of corporations that give back to the community and make a difference with strong employee volunteerism and innovative and results-oriented corporate and philanthropic initiatives.

In January, AT&T was awarded the 2009 President’s Volunteer Service Award, as a commendation of Americans who contribute significant amounts of time to volunteer activities. AT&T received the award through its partnership with Junior Achievement Worldwide, an official certifying organization for the award, who honors corporations that provide volunteers to teach JA’s educational programs.

All of these honors highlight AT&T’s commitment to high school student success and workforce readiness, and the major role AT&T employees have in its success. Concerned that a third of America’s high school students drop out before graduating, AT&T decided to take action by creating AT&T Aspire, a $100 million philanthropic commitment to improve high school success.

AT&T Cares encourages employees to get engaged in community service that is meaningful to them and their communities, to create change and to stay engaged. The initiative builds on the company’s 100-year history of giving back through the AT&T Pioneers, one of the nation’s largest corporate volunteer organizations, with 325,000 employees and retirees as members.

Last year, AT&T employees and retirees, donated more than 8.5 million hours of time, worth more than $176 million**, to community outreach activities.