Healing the community beyond health care

Rite Aid may be a company in the midst of a major transformation to provide greater access to health services, but there is one thing that hasn’t changed and won’t change — Rite Aid’s commitment to helping its neighbors.

(To view the full Special Report, click here.)



“I have worked at a lot of companies, but I’ve never worked for a company where the associates care so much about the communities they serve,” said Ken Martindale, Rite Aid president and COO, and president of its charitable giving arm The Rite Aid Foundation.



It really started with the company’s support of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. For more than 20 years, Rite Aid has been a major supporter of the organization. To date, Rite Aid has raised more than $75 million — including more than $6 million last year, Martindale said.



But it goes beyond CMNH, Martindale said, noting that The Rite Aid Foundation has become much more active in the past few years. The foundation fills three roles: helping the communities Rite Aid serves in times of natural disaster, and also providing relief to associates in times of traumatic need.



The third and biggest arm of The Rite Aid Foundation is KidCents, Rite Aid’s in-store, roundup program that supports nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of children. Members of the company’s wellness+ with Plenti loyalty program have the ability to donate their change to one of the hundreds of approved Kid-Cents charities on Kidcents.com.



Most recently, The Rite Aid Foundation partnered with Folds of Honor, a nonprofit organization based in Owasso, Okla., dedicated to providing educational scholarships to children of fallen or disabled veterans. To celebrate the partnership, the foundation made a contribution of $1.3 million.



“KidCents has been an overwhelming success, and it’s giving us an amazing opportunity to do even more for our communities,” Martindale said.



“In everything we’re doing, we’re making sure that it supports the communities in which we operate,” he said. “Folds of Honor, for example, is our first national strategic partner through KidCents. Our $1.3 million contribution will provide scholarships for 260 children — kindergarten through eighth grade — of fallen or severely disabled veterans, all in communities around our stores,” Martindale said. “And we’re going to work with our teams to engage with those families, to give them the scholarships. When you can actually get the opportunity to look someone in the eye and offer meaningful support, it’s really special.”