Community Giving

Thanks for shopping wiht us on our 5% Day on January 11, we raised $2,875.91 for Ten Thousand Villages Sugar House! Funds will benefit their Children’s Cultural Program which teaches kids about Fair Trade. If you are intested in the program, please email sabrinaking@villagesutah.org.

Whole Foods Market and Ten Thousand Villages share a commitment to Fair Trade. Be sure to check out our Fair Trade products which guarantee fair wages, environmentally sustainably practices, and the highest quality product!

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Great news! We raised $2,813.05 for Utah Nonprofits Association at our Love Your Local Nonprofit Day on Tuesday, August 31!

Not only did we donate 5% of our sales, but we held our “Love Your Local Nonprofit” fair where 28 local nonprofit associations tabled at our store so the community could meet them and learn how to make a difference!

Funds raised from the 5% day will go towards a Whole Foods Market scholarship for a free class on “How to Green Your Nonprofit” plus a new Digital Field Guide program online to provide free access to UNA trainings for members!  UNA serves over 430 nonprofits in Utah, and these programs will help UNA support them!

Check them out at www.utahnonprofits.org!  

If you are a local non-profit organization and would like to apply for a 5% Day with us, please scroll down for information on how to get started.

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We’ve done it! Thanks to our customers for their help in saving the Sugar House fireworks were saved this year! We raised $3,006.40 on our 5% Day and over $3,800 in button sales, totalling over $6,800 contributed to the campaign!

Special thanks to X 96 and Kerry, Bill, & Gina from RFH (and their listeners!) for talking about our 5% day daily and broadcasting live from our store to help generate community support for our 5% Day. And thanks so much to everyone in the community who came out to shop and help us raise funds!

“We’re proud to be a part of saving the Sugar House fireworks!” says Corinne Piazza, Marketing Specialist at Whole Foods Market Sugar House, “It’s not only important to our community members but also our local merchants and economy. Every year, 35,000 to 40,000 Utahns come to see the fireworks show and we’re happy to play a part in keeping the busiest day of the year alive for local merchants!”

Check out the buzz around town about Saving the Fireworks:

• Channel 13, May 25: “Sugar House community trying to raise $75K to save fireworks show”
• 97.1 The Zoo, May 19: Join the Effort to Help Save the Sugar House fireworks with Noodles & Co. and Whole Foods Market
• Good Things Utah, May 18: “Save the Sugar House Fireworks“
• Salt Lake Tribune, May 18: “Resident tries to save July 4 park sparkle“
• Fox 13 News, May 7: “Resident works to keep fireworks in Sugar House“
• Deseret News, May 6: “Funds sought to keep Sugar House fireworks show booming”

Committed to the Community

Whole Foods Market Sugar House is an integral part of this growing community. We gratefully give back to our community through sponsorship and donation to local non- profit organizations and events. Since 1999 we have donated over $40,000 to more than 150 organizations. Stop in the store for more information on our giving programs or to find out how your organization can get involved.

Thank you for your interest in our Community Giving. We are committed to supporting our local community as well as national organizations. We pledge to donate at least five percent of our annual net sales to not-for-profit or educational organizations.

Ways We Give Back

Please read through the following materials carefully in order to decide which program best suits your organization’s needs and offers the best chance of being awarded a donation.

Donations Event Requests
For most organizations a smaller Donation Request based on a specific event is a more likely to be approved and offers considerable value to the organization.

• Whole Foods Market donates to a specific event that the organization plans.
• We prefer to donate product or gift cards and rarely donate cash. The majority of our products will be our private label products.
• All applications must be received in writing at least 6 weeks prior to event/catalog deadline.
• Phone inquires are discouraged and will be directed to apply in writing.
• Rarely do we give large contributions to any one organization, allowing us to donate to a wider range and greater number of non-profits.

Bag Donation Program
This program is exclusive to our stores in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Kansas and was specifically created to assist our local schools! At checkout, if customers bring in their own bags, they can either take 10 cents off their bill or give 10 cents to a local school. This is an excellent opportunity for a school to partner with Whole Foods Market and raise money. We will change the benefiting school quarterly. Schools, please fill out the bag donation application.

Our Community 5% Days are another meaningful way we give back to our community. On designated days throughout the year a total of 5% of the day’s net sales are donated to local non-profit organizations. Customers help support our selected organizations just by shopping on these 5% Days.

Please email Lydia at lydia.martinez@wholefoods.com for a 5% Day application.

Becoming A Community Partner
A Community Partner is a nonprofit organization that we feel matches our Core Values and with whom we want to build an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship. We choose our Community Partners as carefully as we choose our vendors and products for our stores.

Organizations applying for a Community Day should meet all goals of the program. In general we choose organizations that are in the greatest need, have a focused impact on the most individuals or selected causes, and represent the Core Values of Whole Foods Market. All organizations must have non-profit status (501c3) and focus their efforts here in Salt Lake County.

Ready To Apply?
To apply for a donation, please click HERE for an electronic form.  Please be sure to attach a PDF of your 501 (c) 3 letter to be considered. 

All requests must be submitted electronically to Lydia Martinez, Store Marketing Specialist.

Please do not call to check the status of your application. To best serve our community’s needs we must streamline this process and be both efficient and consistent. All applications will be reviewed. If we have further questions we will call you. Once a month we make final decisions based on our monthly projections for the following month. At this time we will call all those granted donations and arrange the time for pick up of the award.

Note: Because we receive hundreds of applications, we are not able to personally speak with all applicants.

We love to hear feedback, have photos sent, pictures drawn, letters written, etc. of the event. It helps keep us connected to you, our community, and keep our team members excited and involved in the Salt Lake Community.

Thanks again for your interest and we hope we can be of help to your organization!