Giving Back to the Community!

Does the term ‘charitable giving’ mean anything to you? Does it make a difference? After all, it’s just about giving money to those people who need it more, right? Well, yes and no.

Charitable giving is about responding to a need; it’s the relief of suffering. So what do our grocery stores do to help out others in our communities? How do they give back?

Well, Sobeys gives back to more than 800 communities across the country including many national initiatives that promote the well-being of families and children including health, wellness, education, food banks and scholarship programs. Their charities include “Helping the Hunger”, “Supporting those who help other”, “Find the Future", and” Celebrating young Artists” (The Sobeys Art Award). Like everyone else they also support Greening Ontario through environmentally friendly and sustainable programs. Wow and who knew?

So how does Loblaw Companies support our community? Do they give as much? Well, they are focused on national, regional and local levels on:

Presidents Choice Children’s Charity, Healthy Active Kids, Feeding our neighbours, Greening our communities. In the addition to these initiatives, Loblaw stores directly support the communities in which they operate by donating gift cards that can also be used as auction items. Now I know if I am ever running a charitable event to see the Loblaw Store Manager and see if they will donate gift cards to help support.

Last but not least, what can Metro give to our community that the others have not already? Metro has a program called “The Metro Full Plate”. This program supports the four food group charities; United Way, Second harvest, Ontario Association of Food Banks, and Breakfast Club of Canada.

It looks like they all do very similar charities and all take part of supporting our community. Way to go!  I have to say, I had no idea these were the charities they all participated in. Unless you read their websites no one would even know. The most I have seen in-store are the bins of food that we place in them for the food banks. I see no advertisements that really stand out to what anyone of them support. Wouldn’t it be nice to see or hear this happening? I don’t know about you but I would like to see it. It makes a difference to see and hear how they support the community.

Hope to see you on my last and final blog, see you then fellow shoppers.