What does Walmart do for local communities?
Walmart’s approximately 2.3 million associates live and work in local communities around the world. Strong, vibrant towns and cities that provide convenient access to healthier food, stable jobs and support in times of disasters are essential to building strong local economies. Over the years, Walmart has been intentional about leveraging our strengths, associates and other resources to build resiliency in communities.
Through collaboration and philanthropic funding, we’re working to strengthen the charitable meals system, provide emergency relief in the face of disasters, and support more than 10,000 communities our stores, clubs and facilities serve.
In FY22, total global cash and in-kind donations from Walmart and the Walmart Foundation was $1.5 billion. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have provided over $43 million for COVID response.
Walmart has a long history of stepping up in times of disaster to help communities with relief and recovery. Since 2016, Walmart, Sam’s Club and the Walmart Foundation have provided more than $132 million for disaster preparedness, response and relief efforts supporting communities around the globe. In FY2022 alone, $24 million was dedicated to disaster recovery and preparedness.
We aim to strengthen the health of our communities, not only by providing products, services and jobs through our retail business, but also by facilitating associate volunteerism, local donations through stores and customers and support for diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Each year, our U.S. stores and clubs award local cash grants ranging from $250 to $5,000. These local grants are designed to address the unique needs of communities where we operate. They include a variety of organizations, such as animal shelters, elder services and community cleanup projects. In FY2022, our stores and clubs provided $44 million in local grants. Examples include donating truckloads of supplies to hospitals, donating tablets to a senior living facility to allow family communication during quarantine and providing Chromebooks to schools to support distance learning.
Lastly, we know that hunger is a reality for many families around the world. In 2010, we made our first public commitment to fight hunger. Since FY2015, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have funded nutrition education programs reaching 4 million people, a milestone achieved in 2019. Building on this milestone, in FY2022 alone, the Walmart Foundation provided additional funding to reach 1.1 million people with nutrition education. In the same time period, stores, clubs and distribution centers in the U.S. donated more than 696 million pounds of food to Feeding America, 64% of which were fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meats. This work is done in collaboration with groups like Feeding America and local food banks. Our U.S. food donation program started in 2006 through the efforts of a single Sam's Club. Since then, we have provided more than 7 billion pounds of food from our network of stores, clubs and distribution centers to Feeding America food banks.
