Ocean State Job Lot Launches 'Close To Our Heart' Nonprofit

Press release from Ocean State Job Lot:

Oct. 28, 2020

Ocean State Job Lot (OSJL), a privately-held, family-owned discount retail chain based in Rhode Island, is pleased to announce that it has extended its “Close to Our Heart” program to each of its 143 stores across the Northeast. Stores in New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are each donating $1,000 to their choice of community groups, charitable organizations and additional local non-profit organizations that make a difference within the communities in which they operate.

As part of the program, the OSJL store located at 1231 East Main Street in Meriden, Connecticut is pleased to announce that it has made a donation to The Cove Center for Grieving Children, which provides family and school-based programs utilizing the peer support group concept to help children, teens and families work with their unresolved grief due to the death of someone significant in their lives, to support and contribute to the organization’s important mission.

"A cornerstone of our company is our philanthropy,” said David Sarlitto, Executive Director, Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation. “Whenever we open our doors in a new community, we make a donation to a non-profit that is ‘close to the heart’ of our local team, but with so many communities struggling right now, we’ve expanded this program to allow our associates to make additional donations to organizations that are meaningful to them.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation has consistently and actively invested in providing relief to the communities in which it operates. In late March, OSJL contributed $250,000 to a fund dedicated to acquiring critical supplies needed in the fight against COVID-19 by leveraging its unique buying power to quickly and affordably source items such as gloves, masks, disinfectants, sanitizers, eye protection, and more from its vendors.

The Foundation distributed more than 1.2 million surgical masks to those on the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19, including 4,800 to each police and fire department in the communities in which its stores are located. OSJL continues to utilize its global supply chain to source critically needed face masks and other PPE and supplies, which are being donated to hospitals and other medical facilities in the region. These efforts are in addition to its many ongoing charitable activities. Also, in April, OSJL launched the ‘Mask Fabric For Free’ campaign, which upon completion supplied customers with the fabric necessary to create an estimated 1.8 million homemade cloth face masks.

This press release was produced by Ocean State Job Lot. The views expressed here are the author's own.