Clinton School graduate and current Walmart Foundation senior development officer Julie Gehrki spoke Monday at the school about Walmart’s efforts to fight hunger in America.
Gehrki said it is important for companies to focus charitable giving on areas in which they work. Because Walmart is identified largely as a grocery store, fighting hunger was a natural fit for the company’s foundation, she said.
Last year, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation made a $2 billion commitment through 2015 to help the 1 in 6 Americans who do not know where they will get their next meal.
Arkansas Business was on hand to cover Gehrki’s lecture:
With 140 million families who enter Wal-Mart stores each week and hunger a problem “in every community,” the cause was one that employees, customers and other corporations could join Wal-Mart in tackling, Gehrki said.
Besides providing food, funds and refrigerator trucks and collecting community food donations at local stores, Wal-Mart has been able to use its logistics expertise, which has made its retail stores so successful, to help food pantries across the nation, she said.
“Wal-Mart is fundamentally a logistics company,” Gehrki said. The corporation’s logistics proficiency has allowed it to help nonprofits streamline their food distribution operations, she said.
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