How Tops Friendly Markets makes helping neighbors a core value

At Tops Friendly Markets, being part of the community means supporting its neighbors in need. Tops and its customers make donations to not-for-profit 501(c)3 organizations that share its belief that by helping to feed those in need and enhancing the quality of life for children through education and excellent health care, they build a strong future together.

To learn more about Tops’ philanthropy, The Packer recently spoke with Andy Brocato, manager of corporate contributions and donations for Tops.

Editor’s note: The following has been edited for length and clarity.

The Packer: Tops has been an active member of the communities it serves from the beginning. What can you tell us about some of Tops’ core causes and why they are important to the company?

Andy Brocato: Neighbors Helping Neighbors is really the overarching theme of what we’re all about at Tops. Through this program, we’ve donated over 64 million meals, over $1.7 million to local schools and over $13 million to children’s hospitals.

We have also donated over $60 million to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation since 1993. We are in the top 12 in the country as far as corporate donors for the program.

In fact, Tops actually created the paper sneaker for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Back in 1983, when we first got involved with the program, one of our then-vice president’s children became affected by Type 1 diabetes. The story is that he asked our design team to create something that would work to help raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. They created the JDRF Paper Sneaker that’s now used universally [as the symbol for the JDRF One Walk]. That campaign helps raise more than $10 million a year for Type 1 diabetes research.

That’s a big thing for us, and we’re really excited by it. It’s one of the tenets of our philanthropic mission, and it’s a program that our stores really get behind.

The other cause we’re also in love with is supporting our beloved veterans. We do a lot of work with veterans and offer an 11% discount on Veterans Day for all of their shopping needs. We also do a program called Buffalo Niagara Honor Flight, where we help the charity raise money, or we donate money from various programs, to bring veterans to Washington, D.C., to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

I’ve been on that trip, and it is probably one of the top five experiences I’ve had in my 26-year career with Tops. I say that because it was so humbling to see them touch the wall and cry, remembering their fellow veterans who are no longer with us. To be able to spend time with them, break bread with them and enable them to get to that site was so meaningful.

We also do a lot of work with United Way, Goodwill Industries, Salvation Army and many others.

Going back to Tops’ work with the JDRF, does produce play a role in your work with the organization?

In addition to the fundraising aspects, sponsoring their walks and speaking at some of their engagements, we also put out information on social media and our website, offering tips and helpful reminders that families can use to have a healthier Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, for example. Produce does play a huge part in that — in promoting healthy eating and healthy lifestyles. And whenever we get new information or new insights, we share them with our community.

Does Tops have a philanthropic vision or mission? What are some key goals around giving?

It’s hard because you want to do everything, and everything we do, we do for the right reasons. I always say that Neighbors Helping Neighbors is our overarching philanthropic program, but we have two tenets that we use for our philanthropic giving, and the first one is to help eradicate hunger. In working with the food banks in our regions, we know that they are great stewards of the monies we raise and the food we donate — and produce is a huge part of that. Getting fresh meats, protein and produce is so difficult for a lot of these food banks.

We have a daily produce program called Fresh Recovery where charities can sign up at all of our stores. If there’s produce that is still good quality that we wouldn’t sell to our customers, we make that available to food banks on a daily basis.

Thirty-five million people nationally don’t know where their next meal is coming from. So, we look within our regions to see what we can do to ensure that we’re working with food banks to have the resources to put a meal on the table. Because hunger never takes a vacation. It’s there 365 days a year.

The second tenet of our program is to improve quality of life for children, medically speaking. A lot of the things that we’ve discussed around JDRF and our work with children’s hospitals are really tied to helping children. Much of the support comes through fundraising from our stores, where we ask both our associates and our customers to support our philanthropic programming.

We also work with the March of Dimes, [Healthy Family Project’s] Produce for Kids, and many other children’s agencies.

In our stores, we have signage to let children and their parents know that the child can pick out a free piece of produce. That’s important, particularly in the summer when kids aren’t getting meals at school.

Why is it important for Tops to give back?

It’s simple. It means everything to our company. Truly, our infrastructure from the top on down provides us with the tools and the support to do the right things for our community. It’s more than our duty — it’s part of our culture. From our president to our CEO and chairman of the board, they make sure that we have our finger on the pulse of what’s happening in our communities. And that is really fueled by the dedication of our 13,000 associates.

We talk with our associates on a regular basis to learn what they’re hearing in their communities. Each store has a “community champion” — the person who really knows what’s happening in the community. We talk with them and look at all of the things each community is facing to help us make informed decisions.