Gates donates $7,500 to local causes
Gates Corporation in Brandon gave a generous $7,500 donation to the Brandon Community Foundation. The donation is part of a global charitable initiative through which the Gates Industrial Corporation Foundation is working with approximately 100 Gates facilities around the world to identify and help fund local nonprofits responding to the pandemic, with charitable giving totaling more than $535,000. The Foundation is also offering double matching for U.S. employee donations to COVID-19-related organizations.
“At Gates, we take our responsibility as a global corporate citizen very seriously,” said Roger Gaston, executive vice president of human resources for Gates. “While we are an employer and an economic engine in nearly a hundred communities around the world, we are also neighbors who want to help out in the places we call home. For that reason, we’re empowering our local facility leaders and all of our employees to help us place resources where they will do the most good.”
Gates Corporation charged the Brandon Community Foundation’s board of directors to decide how the $7,500 would be dispersed. The BCF selected two local nonprofits, the Brandon Area Food Pantry and Corona Help Sioux Falls, which will receive $4,000 and $3,500, respectively.
Gates’ global charitable initiative spans other parts of South and North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa; Greater China; and East Asia and India, including 17 locations across the U.S.
Donations, totaling more than $535,000, are being provided on an unrestricted basis to allow recipient charities maximum flexibility to address the most urgent needs. Among those are Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for frontline medical professionals and health care services, food and housing for the most vulnerable impacted by the pandemic.
In addition to its worldwide charitable donation initiative, Gates continues to actively monitor, manage and adapt to the evolving pandemic. Thanks to prompt implementation of COVID-19 safety protocols at all of its approximately 100 plants, offices, labs and distribution centers around the world, Gates has been able to continue operations.
