SpartanNash Foundation - WKTV Journal

SpartanNash today announced it has been named among the nation’s 2020 Top 10 Military Friendly® Brands, earning sixth place out of more than 60 organizations. The annual list is compiled by VIQTORY, whose mission is to provide veterans and their spouses with the finest choices for employment opportunities.

The Military Friendly® Brands designation, one of four components of the Military Friendly® Companies ratings, measures a company’s social and material investment in support of the military and veteran community, including consumer supports and protections. Organizations earning the Military Friendly® Brand designation were evaluated using public data sources, personal feedback from military community members and responses from VIQTORY’s proprietary survey.

“We are honored to be named a Military Friendly Brand, because it reinforces our commitment to building stronger communities,” Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources and Corporate Affairs and Communications Officer Yvonne Trupiano said. “At SpartanNash, one of our core values is patriotism, and we are deeply committed to serving our military heroes and their families, whether it is as a part of our family of associates or in the communities we serve.”

This is the first year SpartanNash has been named a Military Friendly® Brand. The company was previously honored as a Military Friendly® Employer in both 2019 and 2020, earning Bronze status in 2020.

SpartanNash and its charitable giving arm, the SpartanNash Foundation, are committed to supporting military heroes in their local communities, raising funds and awareness for a variety of nonprofit organizations that provide vital services to veterans and their families.

In 2019, the SpartanNash Foundation granted more than $350,000 to organizations that are making an impact in the lives of our military veterans, active duty personnel and their families. Through partnerships with local and national organizations – including Team Red, White & Blue, Operation Homefront, Vetshouse, Give an Hour, Fisher House Foundation and Honor and Remember – the SpartanNash Foundation has provided critical financial assistance to military families, opportunities for veterans to engage in community service opportunities, free mental health services and has honored the memory of those who have fallen.

Additionally, SpartanNash associates volunteered more than 1,500 hours with military organizations and veterans service organizations of their choosing in 2019.

As a leading distributor of grocery products to U.S. military commissaries and exchanges around the world, SpartanNash currently employs more than 750 military veterans, Reservists and National Guardsmen, in addition to many Blue and Gold Star family members throughout the company. SpartanNash also offers an employee resource group, SNVETS, which focuses on supporting, networking, volunteering, educating, training and serving military associates, their families and veterans in the community.

For more information about SpartanNash’s commitment to our military heroes, visit spartannash.com/foundation.

The Military Friendly® Company survey investigates and identifies the organizations whose commitment to serving the military and veteran community is comprehensive in scope and meaningful in terms of actual outcomes and impact. From hiring and career advancement to customer service and charitable investment, organizations earning the Military Friendly® Brand designation were evaluated using both public and government data sources with responses from a comprehensive survey completed by the employer.

More than 60 companies were named Military Friendly® Brands for 2020.

Family Network of Wyoming is located at 1029 44th St. SW., Wyoming. (Supplied)

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org

For the Family Network of Wyoming, the SpartanNash Foundation’s recent donation of $5,100 will have a big impact on what the organization can offer.

“It is the single largest donation we will get this year,” said Dale Echavarria, co-executive director of Family Network of Wyoming. “For about every dollar we take in, we can get about $10 of food. We feed more than 10,000 people a year. So for a small pantry like Family Network of Wyoming, the recent SpartanNash Foundation’s scan campaign for hunger relief really does make an impact.”

The Family Network of Wyoming was one of the top 10 fundraising efforts for this year’s SpartanNash Foundation’s scan campaign for hunger relief. From Oct. 23 to Nov. 3, patrons were asked if they wanted to scan up to donate to a local food pantry.

“What that means is that say your bill was $45 and you handed the cashier $50, the cashier would ask if you want to scan up to $50 to make a donation,” Echavarria said. “People could donate a dollar, $5, or $10 or round up to the nearest dollar and people did.”

In fact, SpartanNash reported that it raised $271,150 to support more than 100 local food pantries and food banks in Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to the scan campaign, the SpartanNash Foundation also granted $5,000 to 15 food pantries located near SpartanNash food distribution and MDV distribution centers, bring the total donation to $346,150, equivalent to 3.5 million meals.

“What better way to say ‘thanks’ this Thanksgiving and holiday season than to provide vital funds to more than 100 local food pantries and food banks?” said Meredith Gremel, vice president of corporate affairs and communicants and the executive director of the SpartanNash Foundation. “These funds will be used to put food on so many families’ tables both during the holiday season and throughout the year, providing hunger relief where it’s needed most.”

Each SpartanNash store, which includes the Family Fare chain, selected a local community food partner its campaign would support. Echavarria said Family Network of Wyoming was fortunate to receive support from the two Family Fare stores in Wyoming, the one at the Metro Health Village and the one located on Burlingame Avenue.

Family Network of Wyoming will serve more than 10,000 individuals this year. (Supplied)

“One of the things they let us do was set up a table and share flyers and brochures about what we do here at Family Network of Wyomig,” Echoavarria said. Family Network of Wyoming opened its doors in 2004. In its first year, the organization served 130,000 pounds of food to 1,400 households. Today, Family Network of Wyoming will serve more than 10,000 people. It has only two paid staff and operates with 43 volunteers who put n 1,200 hours a month.

Over the years, the Family Network of Wyoming has grown and expanded its services to offer food related programs: such as the the NOW program, as well as non-food programs and services: a durable medical equipment loan closet, annual Wyoming Christmas Store, and job skill classes. Echavarria said the organization also has developed the lead pantry concept, where it works with other pantries in the area to make sure that no extra food “gets wasted.”

Gremel said that an important aspect to the SpartanNash hunger relief campaign was to raise awareness about the Foundations food bank and food pantry partners — sharing the need for hunger relief with more than 2.7 million store guest during the 12-day program.

“They really walk the talk,” Echavarria said of SpartanNash, adding that along with the annual hunger campaign, SpartanNash has also provided food items to the pantry on a weekly basis.

“Wyoming has always been extremely generous,” Echavarria said, adding that last year a group of dentists and orthodontists, lead by Grandville’s Shannon Orthodontics, had a”food fight” with “us having a fleet of mini vans with all the donated food items.”

“It’s a joy,” Echavarria said of all the local support the pantry has received.