For ninth consecutive year, volunteers fitted students with warm jackets
CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This week, more than 200 local Wells
Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) volunteers provided free winter
jackets to over 10,000 students at 13 Chicago Public Schools. This
season marks the company’s ninth consecutive year of giving.
Wells Fargo’s Coats for Kids campaign raised more than $200,000 from
team member donations, company contributions and a private matching
grant to buy the jackets. Since the program began in 2009, Chicago team
members – including Wells Fargo Bank and Wells Fargo Advisors – have
raised more than $1 million and donated about 60,000 coats.
Wells Fargo collaborates with Operation
Warm, one of the leading U.S. nonprofit organizations dedicated to
providing children with new winter coats. Operation Warm uses the
donations raised by Wells Fargo to supply the new outerwear, and then
company volunteers distribute the coats in early November.
The company contributed 2,500 coats to low-income children at a Chicago
Housing Authority event on Oct. 16 and will help fund 250
more coats with Children’s
Home + Aid and Rainbow Push Coalition. In addition, Wells Fargo
employees in Rockford, Illinois, provided 400 coats to local
schoolchildren for the fourth consecutive year. Since 2014, the group
has donated about 1,600 coats.
“We believe that the kids in our community should be able to walk to
school and play outside regardless of the weather,” said Carter
Wellford, Chicago branch manager for Wells Fargo Advisors. “A winter
coat gives them that opportunity and can help keep them healthy. This is
an important event to our Chicago team members each year, and we’re
excited about what we’ve accomplished thus far.”
Rich Lalley, development director for Operation Warm, said, “We’re
grateful for the partnership we’ve had with Wells Fargo for almost a
decade now. For these children, it represents more than just a new coat.
It is an offering of physical and emotional support, boost in confidence
and hope for the future. When Wells Fargo team members meet these
students and personally fit them for a coat, a lasting personal
connection is made.”
In addition to funding the coats, Wells Fargo Illinois team members
volunteered nearly 30,000 hours and contributed more than $1.7 million
to nonprofits through the company’s internal Community Support Campaign
in 2017. In Chicago alone, team member contributions to the campaign
broke the $1 million mark three years in a row. That same year, Wells
Fargo donated more than $4 million to nearly 300 nonprofits through
corporate and foundation giving, including more than $525,300 to match
team member gifts to educational institutions. The company also recently
doubled its investment in the United Way Neighborhood
Network Initiative in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood to $600,000 by
2020.
More than 3,600 team members across 50 Wells Fargo lines of business
serve a broad range of commercial, corporate, and individual customers
in Chicagoland.
About Operation Warm
Since 1998, Operation Warm has inspired hope and empowered communities
by manufacturing and distributing high-quality, new winter coats to over
3 million children in need throughout the U.S. Each year, over 40,000
Chicago-area children in need receive the gift of a new Operation Warm
winter coat. The nonprofit works with organizations at a community
level, assisting local advocates to help children receive coats in their
own backyard. Operation Warm's vision is that every child wearing a new
winter coat is warm, feels valued, and is empowered to get to school and
gain an education. To learn more or start your own community coat
program, visit www.operationwarm.org
.
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About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based
financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s
vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them
succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco,
Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and
services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,950
locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile
banking, and has offices in 37 countries and territories to support
customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately
262,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the
United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune’s 2018
rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and
perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells
Fargo Stories.
About Wells Fargo Advisors
Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing
Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker-dealer and non-bank
affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.
