When most of the news is about negative events, we all can use information about companies who have creatively pitched in to give back to their communities. From retailers and brands helping hospitals cope, to iconic logos changing to promote social distancing, to Harbor Freight Tools donating its entire supply of protective equipment to hospitals with 24-hour emergency rooms, we hope this list adds some optimism to the start of your month.
Retailers and Brands Helping Hospitals
- 7-Eleven has donated a million masks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the medical community to use while fighting the pandemic.
- Colgate-Palmolive is using its manufacturing facilities around the world to produce and donate 25 million bars of soap to help stem the spread of the virus “in the regions facing acute needs.”
- Harbor Freight Tools is donating its entire supply of protective equipment to hospitals with 24-hour emergency rooms in communities where their stores are located.
- The Home Depot is halting the sale of its N95 masks and redirecting them to hospitals, health care providers, and first responders to offset the national shortage of personal protective equipment. This includes masks sold both in-store and online.
- Joanne Fabrics is giving away supplies and guidance for its crafting community on making 100% cotton face masks and serving as a collection point for completed masks.
- Lowe’s is donating $10 million in essential products for medical professionals. The donation is part of a $25 million commitment to help communities hit hardest within the U.S. and Canada.
Social Distancing Awareness
- Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Audi and VW temporarily changed their logos to promote social distancing.
- Dunkin’ Donuts also adopted social distancing in their branding, and shared a social media post that contained two distanced cups.
- Indie movie distributor Kino Lorber announced an agreement with independent theaters across the country to host a “virtual theatrical exhibition initiative,” and will release movies that it had scheduled to play in theaters online instead.
- NBCUniversal is also releasing new movies online instead of in theaters.
Small Business Support
- Bank of America committed $100 million in support of communities around the world that were impacted. Goldman Sachs is pledging $300 million to communities and small businesses. The Visa Foundation also committed $200 million to support women in small business.
- Facebook launched a $100 million grant program for 30,000 small businesses in 30 countries around the world.
- Google announced a more than $800 million commitment to support businesses, health organizations, governments and health workers on the front lines.
- To help small businesses and nonprofits stay connected with customers and other audiences via social media, Hootsuite is offering free access to its Professional Plan subscription, along with access to its library of training videos.
- Instagram added a new feature where users can visit a business’s website and order gift cards directly from the app.
- McDonald’s donated $3.1 million in food to support local communities, made commitments to support truck drivers across the country, donated 1 million N95 masks to Chicago and donated $1 million to the Illinois COVID-19 Response Fund.
- Shopify is offering new customers access to its online storefront platform for 90 days.
- Verizon is donating $7.5 million to nonprofit Local Initiatives Support Corporation for its Small Business Recovery Fund.
Food For More
- Beyond Meat has pledged to donate and distribute over 1 million vegetarian burgers to hospitals and food banks.
- Casey’s General Stores has donated more than 30,000 pounds of food to the Food Bank of Iowa. It also donated more than 7,700 pounds to the Terre Haute Catholic Charities.
- Little Caesars announced plans to deliver a million pizzas to health care workers and first responders in the coming weeks. The pizzas are expected to provide about 4 million meals to hospital workers and first responders across the country.
- McDonald’s offered free Thank You Meals through May 5 to health-care workers, police officers, firefighters and paramedics.
- The New York Food Truck Association is partnering with brands like Pipcorn, Core Foods, and Chobani to provide free meals to first responders and health care workers, with a dozen food trucks rotating between hospitals in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
- Starbucks has donated more than 700,000 meals to food banks across the country and is also donating more than $3 million to global relief efforts.
- Subway has donated 15 million meals to Feeding America to help those in need, and is donating a 6-inch sub to health-care workers at participating hospitals for each order purchased via Postmates.
- Wells Fargo is donating $175 million to help public health, housing, and food efforts.
Supporting Health Care Workers
- Airbnb said it will also subsidize housing for 100,000 workers at the front lines of COVID-19 care.
- Armani halted operations at its production plants to manufacturing single-use overalls for health care workers.
- Barco, the health care apparel company, is donating 10,000 scrubs each month for the duration of the pandemic.
- Delta Air Lines will fly eligible medical volunteers round-trip for free to Georgia, Louisiana and Michigan, and is looking at expanding free flights to California, New York and Washington.
- Dr. Scholls Wellness Company is donating $1.3 million in insoles to support health care workers. This includes 100,000 pairs of Dr. Scholl’s Massaging Gel Work insoles, which the company says reduce muscle fatigue and also absorb shock.
- Hilton will offer up to 1 million hotel room nights across the United States to medical professionals.
- Stanley Black & Decker has donated 3 million face masks and other personal protective equipment to health care workers and first responders.
Working From Home and Education Resources
- Adobe is offering free access to Creative Cloud tools through May for home use by students attending schools that currently only provide lab access through May.
- Coursera is offering free access to 100 of its online courses in a wide variety of subjects. Of these courses, 85 include free certificates for anyone who completes the curriculum.
- LogMeIn is offering Emergency Remote Work Kits to new customers, which includes free 90-day access to GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and LogMeIn.
- Microsoft is offering free access to its Microsoft Teams app for 6 months.
- Okta will provide its Okta Identity Cloud service for free to new customers for six months.
- Skillsoft is offering free 60-day access to its entire library of online educational content, available through its Percipio learning experience platform.
- U-Haul is offering students displaced by the coronavirus a month of free storage at company-owned storage facilities.
- Zoom is free for schools and has lifted its 40-minute meeting limit.
For more information on how COVID-19 is impacting the grocery industry, you can read our blog on the nationwide trends we’ve observed HERE. If your organization is contributing to the good news listed above, please reach out to us so we can include your efforts in future articles.
