Albertsons Companies Foundation Celebrates Women’s Day

Mar 8, 2017 5:00 AM ET
Campaign: Community

This Women’s Day, Albertsons Companies celebrates Christy Duncan Anderson, the visionary leader and inspiration behind the Albertsons Companies Foundation, and her efforts to support women (among others) in our local communities. The Foundation operates locally under our store brand names, including:  Albertsons, Safeway, Acme, Shaw’s and others. Our stores provide the opportunity to mobilize funding and create awareness in our neighborhoods. This is activated through our employees’ passion, partnerships with our vendors and the generous contributions by our customers.

“As women, we all take on many roles – employee, coach, volunteer and, my most cherished role, mom.  While I was working on developing the anti-hunger platform for the Foundation, I met many determined, hard working moms who were struggling to put food on the table and I couldn’t help thinking ‘what if I couldn’t feed my kids?’ The thought still sends chills down my spine.  As Executive Director of the Albertsons Companies Foundation, I am grateful to have the opportunity to do something about it.  Those moms, coupled with my empathy as a mom myself, was the impetus to the development of our childhood hunger campaign – Hunger Is,” Christy recalled.

Hunger Is, a joint program of the Albertsons Companies Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, is working across the nation to eradicate childhood hunger, starting with ensuring that all kids have a healthy breakfast every day. Hunger Is believes that when kids aren’t hungry for breakfast, they can be hungry for more.  More ideas.  More doing.  More dreams.  Just this past year, Hunger Is exceeded their goal of providing more than 5 million breakfasts to kids in need.

In addition to working to end childhood hunger in neighborhoods across America, Christy and her small but mighty team are dedicated to bettering the lives of people across the country. Over the past five years, the Albertsons Companies Foundation has donated over $8 million to various programs that support women’s health and social and economic well-being. These donations have funded breast cancer research, expanded access to health education programs, provided free mammograms, and offered financial assistance to low-income breast cancer patients. The Foundation also donated to women’s empowerment programs that provided educational and vocational opportunities for women rejoining the workforce, supported female veterans and offered rehabilitation services for victims of domestic violence. With meaningful celebration and bold action, we can continue to create opportunities that drive greater change for women.

Under Christy’s leadership, the Foundation donated over $25 million last year in support of education, cancer research, hunger relief, veterans support and programs for people with disabilities. Staying true to the mission, the Foundation seeks to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve.

 “I believe that in improving the lives of women all across the country and supporting each other, we all come out stronger” says Christy.

And we believe it, too.  This Women’s Day we celebrate Christy Duncan Anderson and all women who drive to make life better for our neighbors.