Snack Makers, Retailers Give Back in Communities

Whether it’s millions of dollars, tons of food, or help producing documentaries, the generosity of snack makers and retailers is making powerful changes in the communities they serve.

Some snack makers, like the PepsiCo Foundation, can donate millions of dollars in a single gift, as the foundation did last summer when it gave $4 million to the Robin Hood Foundation to help lift more than 20,000 girls and women ages 13 to 24 out of poverty in the Bronx, New York, the city’s poorest borough.

The Robin Hood Foundation gift will provide women with high school equivalency, college prep and graduation support, as well as skills and job training and schooling in economic security topics.

“We are energized and excited to work with PepsiCo toward a day when every young woman and girl in the Bronx has the opportunity to fulfill her full potential,” said Wes Moore, Robin Hood Foundation’s CEO when the gift was announced.

When Hurricane Florence struck Florida in September, the PepsiCo Foundation stepped up again, making $500,000 grants to the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army to assist in providing 350,000 meals to families who suffered in the storm.

The Foundation’s generosity is part of PepsiCo’s Performance with Purpose program, which has a number of goals, including supporting diversity, respect for human rights, sourcing sustainability, zero waste to landfills and halving wasted food. The Performance with Purpose program operates across all segments of PepsiCo.

Like PepsiCo, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation often makes generous gifts. Rather than direct donations, however, the Kellogg Foundation has developed a new kind of community development initiative called a program-related investment. A $1 million low-interest, 10-year loan made the Paul Robeson Community Wellness Center in South Los Angeles, California, possible.

The center’s first floor includes a produce market, a café serving healthy food, a commercial kitchen and a market distribution center. The second floor has a community meeting space, and there’s an urban farm on grounds and on the rooftop to supply the market with fresh produce.

“The center increases the community’s access to healthy food and will serve as a national model for other communities,” said Cynthia Miller, director of WKKF’s Mission Driven Investments. “It helps children learn more about healthy foods and wellness. That means they’ll be more successful, with healthier lives.”

Snack Makers Give On Smaller Scale

Snack maker Nutiva, located in Richmond, California, sells culinary oils, nutrient add-ins such as hemp and chia seeds, and nut-based spreads. The company created the Nutiva Foundation in 2013 to assist programs or projects that support sustainable agriculture. The Foundation is funded with one percent of Nutiva’s profits and since 1999, the company has donated more than $3 million to various programs.

“We are excited about the foundation because we can support initiatives we care about and contribute in real ways,” a Nutiva spokesperson said. The Foundation focuses on four areas: sustainable agriculture, food and environmental activism, trees and gardens and healthy communities.

“Two projects we have supported that address a better way to eat are the documentary GMO OMG and Urban Tilth’s urban gardens,” the spokesperson said.

Retailers Get in on the Act

BJ’s Wholesale Club, headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, makes its gifts through BJ’s Charitable Foundation. Last summer, the foundation gave $50,000 to Feeding America Southwest Virginia, a food bank, to provide meals to children and their families over the summer, when children lose access to meals at school.

Working in partnership with the Feeding America network of food banks since 2009, BJ’s Charitable Foundation has secured more than 70 million pounds of donated food and its team members have helped distribute more than 58 million meals through the foundation’s Feeding Communities® program.

–By Robin Mather