Our Impact 2020

As I reflect on 2020 as a year, it was certainly an unprecedented and unpredictable year. As the magnitude of needs grew this year - COVID-19, economic shutdowns, growing homelessness, political divisions, racial injustice, the rise of single use plastics - so did the importance of the need to use our business as a force for good. At Gifts for Good, we have continued to find new ways to increase our impact, both for communities we are serving, and for our customers by providing them great products and connecting them to the impact their purchases create. We even achieved B Corp Certification last year verifying our commitment to impact and transparency.

2020 created trepidation for businesses, especially small businesses like ours.  In March when stay at home orders were put in place, there was the common fear if we would be able to survive, let alone be able to grow our impact to serve new needs that COVID-19 created. When I completed our yearly impact statistics, I was truly humbled in tears by the things YOU made happen. Not only were we able to continue to support our partners, but we were able to deepen our impact in ways I could not have imagined last January. We granted over $400,000 to amazing local and global partners. We have six main Cause Categories, here are some of the things the Gifts for Good community made happen together: 

Animal Welfare:

• Funded 23,728 hours of care for rescue pets here in Los Angeles through Best Friends Animal Society
• Provided  2,213 meals to abused and neglected rescue horses through Sunrise Horse Rescue in Northern California
• Adopted 8 elephant orphans through The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya

Children in Need:

• Funded 1,775 children-in-need with school supplies for an entire year through Feed The Children
• Funded 598 days of schooling for children-in-need in Honduras through Mission Lazarus
• Provided 85,371 meals to kids in need with over 59,000 of those meals in our home of Southern California though Giving Children Hope
• Provided 3,800+ books to children in need through Room to Read
• Provided 182,129 children with life-saving vitamins for a year through Vitamin Angels

Economic Development:

• Created over 2,800 hours of employment for artisans in Haiti
• Created over 730 hours for individuals in Los Angeles who have developmental disabilities
• Created over 1,000 hours of employment for those coming out of slavery in India
• Created 3,934 hours of meaningful employment for young men in Alabama with barriers to employment
• Created 27 hours of employment to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated women and men in Los Angeles 

Environment:

• Recycled 4,548 plastic bottles into soft blankets
• Planted 533,884 trees through Eden Reforestation Project
• Saved 855,935 gallons of water by using recycled materials
• Avoided 876 pounds of CO2 emissions by recycling glass
• Recovered 7.5 billboards from the landfill and turned into new products

Health:

• Provided 5,131 rides to cancer patients for treatment through American Cancer Society
• Provided 808 women with prenatal vitamins for their entire pregnancy through Vitamin Angels
• Funded two entire water projects in Central African Republic through Water for Good providing a lifetime of clean water for thousands
• Provided over 330 solar lights to individuals without access to electricity
• Funded 3 Veterans with the services and support they need to move off the streets and into a safe and dignified living situation

Women At Risk:

• Created 395 hours of employment for women transitioning from homeless on Skid Row
• Created over 370 hours of employment for women coming out of domestic abuse
• Created over 380 of employment for women resettled refugee women rebuilding their lives
• Created over 8,000 hours of employment for women in Ethiopia without opportunity

Special COVID-19 Support & Disaster Relief:

• Served approximately 7,500 people in Navajo Nation with PPE, meals, and other basic needs through Giving Children Hope
• Funded 1,700+ hours of COVID-19 Training for health care workers and provided 78,000+ masks to health care workers through Project Hope
• Served over 10,000 beneficiaries with access to potable water, hygiene promotion, surgical and KN95 masks, and infection prevention and control training after hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras and Nicaragua through Project Hope 

The impact listed above represents hundreds of thousands of real lives touched in a variety of sectors. We continue to strive to deepen our relationships to create lasting change and that is thanks to YOU. None of this happens without customers choosing to shift their purchases to Gifts for Good to both give better gifts AND to create a better world. The list above is YOUR impact and on behalf of our entire team, thank you for choosing to shop with us and to TOGETHER  serve people and planet. 

With a grateful heart,

Jenise Steverding

Chief Impact Officer